Hamilton tops final practice

Lewis Hamilton topped the final practice session for the Australian Grand Prix by setting a fastest time of 1m27.867s. However, the surprise was that team mate Nico Rosberg was not in second place. That honor went to Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel as Nico Rosberg only placed third. The Williams drivers of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa rounded out the top five.

Lotus continued its solid pace this weekend as Romain Grosjean placed seventh and Pastor Maldonado was in eighth for the session and Toro Rosso was behind them in ninth and eleventh.

Sauber after not running in the first session yesterday had a relatively strong session despite a spin from Marcus Ericsson. Ericsson placed in twelfth while Felipe Nasr was in tenth.

Red Bull had a difficult start to Saturday as Daniil Kvyat complained of an engine problem at the beginning of the session and was not seen on track for the remainder of the session. He only managed six laps and set the slowest time. The other Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo only managed ten laps as he stopped at the pit lane exit and was also complaining about the drive-ability of the car throughout the session.

McLaren also continued their struggle as both drivers were near the bottom of the order but on a positive note for them they were able to get a bit more on track running today.

The Manor team did not go out in the session again as they are still trying to get their cars up and running.

Saturday Practice Results

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m27.867s	-	11
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m28.563s	0.696s	12
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m28.821s	0.954s	14
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1m28.912s	1.045s	14
5	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1m28.988s	1.121s	18
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m29.017s	1.150s	13
7	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	1m29.481s	1.614s	12
8	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	1m29.864s	1.997s	15
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	1m29.869s	2.002s	19
10	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1m29.934s	2.067s	24
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	1m29.952s	2.085s	16
12	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1m30.613s	2.746s	21
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1m30.741s	2.874s	14
14	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1m30.993s	3.126s	17
15	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	1m31.185s	3.318s	10
16	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Honda	1m31.391s	3.524s	14
17	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1m31.666s	3.799s	13
18	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull-Renault	1m32.830s	4.963s	6
19	Will Stevens	Manor-Ferrari	No Time		0
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor-Ferrari	No Time		0