Suzuka, 4 Oct 2014: Nico Rosberg went quickest in the final practice session ahead of qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, while championship leading team-mate Lewis Hamilton crashed out.

After being second best to Hamilton in the first part of the hour-long session, run on hard compound Pirelli tyres, Rosberg jumped to the top of the timeseheet with his first run on the option medium tyres.

Hamilton left the Mercedes garage for his run, but as he wound up for a flying lap the Briton went wide in Turn One, ran over a kerb and ended up going straight on across the gravel trap into the barriers. The impact was not heavy but the front-left wheel of his car was torn off, leaving his team with much work to get through before qualifying.

Rosberg ended the session in P1. Hamilton’s best hard-tyre time, just under a second down on his team-mate’s soft-tyre best, was still good enough for second place. Fernando Alonso was third with a lap 1.2s down on Rosberg’s.

Fourth place went to Williams’ Felipe Massa, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas rounding out the top five.

Hamilton wasn’t the only driver to miss out on the option tyre runs at the end of the session. Midway through Sebastian Vettel, fresh from announcing that he will leave Red Bull Racing at the end of the 2014 season, reported that he was having problems with his RB10. He was told to box and then race engineer Guillaume ‘Rocky’ Rocquelin informed the driver that the problem was worse than first suspected and that it would need a “deeper look”. Vettel completed just six laps in the session and finished 15^th.

Kimi Raikkonen, too, was in trouble. Just before the switch to the option tyres the Finn was on the radio saying he was down on power. He was told to return to the pits where Ferrari later reported they would be doing a precautionary engine change.

2014 Japanese Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 Times
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:33.228 14
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:34.210 0.982 10
3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:34.439 1.211 12
4 Felipe Massa Williams 1:34.564 1.336 12
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:35.061 1.833 16
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:35.086 1.858 13
7 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:35.251 2.023 16
8 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:35.494 2.266 8
9 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:35.538 2.310 17
10 Jenson Button McLaren 1:35.549 2.321 16
11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:35.732 2.504 15
12 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:35.995 2.767 5
13 Sergio Perez Force India 1:36.365 3.137 8
14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:36.407 3.179 22
15 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:36.460 3.232 6
16 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:36.558 3.330 19
17 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:36.617 3.389 12
18 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:36.626 3.398 20
19 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:37.367 4.139 12
20 Max Chilton Marussia 1:37.883 4.655 17
21 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:38.102 4.874 15
22 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:38.784 5.556 12

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