Australian GP: Rosberg dominates final practice in Melbourne

The Mercedes W05 was clearly the fastest car on both of the available tyre compounds as both Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton led the times during early running on mediums.

Rosberg was the first to lap under 1m30s after swapping to softs, lowering the bar to 1m29.375s, and while Hamilton was fastest of all in the first sector in response, he lost time in the middle sector to end the session fourth quickest, 1.501s off Rosberg's best.

Even though there were spots of rain before the green flag and it was generally cloudier than yesterday, with a gusting wind, the top runners quickly got into the groove and began to improve their times.

Button reported a litany of imperfections in his McLaren's performance, from locking rear brakes to poor balance on corner entry and exit. But on soft tyres at the end he found enough speed to go second fastest overall, just over a tenth of a second quicker than Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard was the most assured of the Scuderia's drivers, lapping comfortably while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen ran off-track more than once as he struggled with his car's balance and finished the session 1.7s off the ultimate pace.

Daniel Ricciardo was quickest of the Red Bulls with 1m30.970s, accomplished on the soft tyres, but Sebastian Vettel was a full 2.880s off Rosberg's best and finished final practice complaining of a lack of acceleration.

Williams had a less positive session than yesterday, with Felipe Massa propping up the top 10 and Valtteri Bottas completing just two untimed laps before parking his FW36. He will incur a five-place grid penalty after the team confirmed it would have to change his car's gearbox.

Those teams whose new cars are in a less mature state of development continued to struggle. Esteban Gutierrez returned to the Sauber garage after reporting a gearbox problem and sat out the remainder of the session.

Both Lotus and Marussia had to use one of their six permitted 'jokers' to break the curfew on garage working hours, but they, along with Caterham, at least ran more laps than yesterday.

Pos  Driver             Team/Car              Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m29.375s             15
 2.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m30.766s  +1.391s    20
 3.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m30.876s  +1.501s    11
 4.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes              1m30.919s  +1.544s    13
 5.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull-Renault      1m30.970s  +1.595s    13
 6.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes  1m30.978s  +1.603s    16
 7.  Kimi Räikkönen     Ferrari               1m31.156s  +1.781s    12
 8.  Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes      1m31.251s  +1.876s    22
 9.  Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m31.665s  +2.290s    17
10.  Felipe Massa       Williams-Mercedes     1m31.723s  +2.348s    20
11.  Daniil Kvyat       Toro Rosso-Renault    1m31.925s  +2.550s    17
12.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m32.255s  +2.880s    14
13.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Renault    1m32.417s  +3.042s    16
14.  Jules Bianchi      Marussia-Ferrari      1m34.184s  +4.809s    15
15.  Adrian Sutil       Sauber-Ferrari        1m34.188s  +4.813s    16
16.  Kamui Kobayashi    Caterham-Renault      1m34.413s  +5.038s    19
17.  Max Chilton        Marussia-Ferrari      1m34.717s  +5.342s    15
18.  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus-Renault         1m34.754s  +5.379s    15
19.  Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault      1m36.159s  +6.784s    21
20.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes                            2
21.  Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari                               2
22.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault                                4