Free Practice 3 at Long Beach ended with Lucas di Grassi the man to beat going into qualifying. He finished on top once again with a time of 57.293 running for only 4 laps, setting just 1 competitive time.
Sebastian Buemi was the first man on the circuit. However; unlike the last two sessions, the drivers didn’t race out of the pits. Drivers slowly came on the circuit to ensure that they had track position in order to set competitive runs. Despite this some found themselves held up by traffic, including Vitantonio Liuzzi who didn’t set a competitive lap for the rest of practice after being held up.
With 19 minutes left of the session, drivers started to push. Some, like António Félix da Costa ruined their lap times with mistakes, the Portuguese driver ran wide at Turn 5 and into the run-off. However it was Jean-Eric Vergne who made the most of the clear track to go fastest. His time was soon beaten by di Grassi who set a 57.293 on his one competitive lap of the session, beating Vergne by 0.304 seconds.
Drivers started to pull into the pits with 11 minutes to go as the field from 1st to 19th was separated by only 1.6 seconds. Liuzzi was the only competitor not to have set a competitive time. As the session progressed the drivers focused on long runs in preparation for the race, as a result the leader board saw no major changes in position until the end of the session.
This meant that di Grassi topped the session ahead of Vergne, Nico Prost, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Scott Speed