F1: Lewis Hamilton fastest in final practice for Australian GP

Lewis Hamilton was once again the fastest in the third and final practice session for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix with an elapsed time of 1:22.292.

With his fast time, Hamilton completed a sweep of all three practice sessions, as the defending world champion’s Mercedes was also the quickest in the first two practices Friday.

Sebastian Vettel finished second with a time of 1:22:556, followed by his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc (1:22:749).

Haas teammates Roman Grosjean (1:23:113), and Kevin Magnuessen (1:23.334), were fourth and fifth, respectively.

The rest of the top 10: Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas, Daniil Kvyat, Max Verstappen and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Robert Kubica was the slowest in a frustrating final practice session for the Williams/Mercedes team. Kubica hit the pit wall while entering pit lane too quickly.

He also was involved in a pit-lane incident with rookie McLaren driver Lando Norris that resulted in Norris being called to the stewards for an unsafe release.

Full FP3 results are below:

Hamilton heads the times in final practice ⏱️

With the @ScuderiaFerrari duo breathing down his neck 👀#AusGP 🇦🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/u0OZHRKFe8

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 16, 2019

FIA stewards announced Monday that two Ford GT entries have been disqualified from this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, including the GTE-Am class-winning No. 85 entry from privateer Keating Motorsports.

Also DQ’d was the factory No. 68 Chip Ganassi Racing entry of Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller and Sebastien Bourdais, which initially finished fourth in the GTE-Pro class.

Both entries were found in violation of fuel capacity regulations, with the No. 85 entry also failing to meet the minimum refueling time during pit stops.

The refueling system on the No. 85 entry, driven by Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Felipe Fraga, measured a time of 44.4 seconds during a stop, just shy of the minimum required time of 45 seconds.

As a result, the team was initially issued a 55.2-second post-race penalty by officials, which elevated the No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR of Joerg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey, and Egidio Perfetti to the class win.

The time penalty was calculated by the difference in the refueling time (0.6 seconds) multiplied by the amount of pit stops made by the team (23), then multiplied by four.

The No. 85 entry was set to finish second in class, but then received an outright DQ after its fuel capacity was also revealed to be 0.1 liters above the maximum permitted capacity of 96 liters.

As for Ganassi’s No. 68 entry, it was found to have a fuel capacity of 97.83 liters, which is above the maximum allowed capacity of 97 liters for the GTE-Pro Fords.

The No. 67 Ford of Andy Priaulx, Harry Tincknell, and Jonathan Bomarito subsequently moves up to fourth, and the No. 69 Ford of Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook moves up to fifth.

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