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Spanish GP: Felipe Massa fastest for Ferrari in final practice

Felipe Massa put Ferrari back on top in the final practice session at Barcelona ahead of Spanish Grand Prix qualifying

The Brazilian edged out Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus by just 0.006 seconds in a very tight end to the hour.

By the time the medium-tyre qualifying simulations were completed, just 0.353s covered the Ferraris, Lotuses and Red Bulls.

As had been the case on Friday, local hero Fernando Alonso spent plenty of time at the head of the order in the #3 Ferrari.

Early quick times from the Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel and the Lotus pair were deposed when Alonso set a 1m23.006s after 24 minutes.

The lap was far from perfect, but it was enough to edge a few fractions in front of Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen.

Alonso's time was the quickest of the hard-tyre runs, and when the qualifying simulations on mediums began, he was first to raise the bar with a 1m22.254s.

Raikkonen then hinted that Lotus might have the one-lap pace to be a qualifying factor as he beat Alonso's time by 0.347s 10 minutes from the end.

The only man able to beat this was Massa, who slipped in a 1m21.901s to secure the top spot.

Mark Webber ended up as Red Bull's lead runner in third, followed by Grosjean and Vettel.

Alonso was eventually pushed down to sixth.

The Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil took seventh and eighth.

Mercedes worked hard on long runs, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg completing more laps than anyone else.

They ended up ninth and 11th, split by another impressive run from Toro Rosso as Jean-Eric Vergne made the top 10.

McLaren continued to struggle. Jenson Button and Sergio Perez were only 12th and 14th in the heavily revised car.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car              Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari               1m21.901s            13
 2.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault         1m21.907s  + 0.006s  14
 3.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault      1m22.044s  + 0.143s  17
 4.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault         1m22.069s  + 0.168s  13
 5.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault      1m22.229s  + 0.328s  17
 6.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari               1m22.254s  + 0.353s  15
 7.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m22.574s  + 0.673s  11
 8.  Adrian Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  1m22.729s  + 0.828s  17
 9.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes              1m22.740s  + 0.839s  24
10.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m22.759s  + 0.858s  15
11.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m22.839s  + 0.938s  26
12.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes      1m23.151s  + 1.250s  13
13.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari        1m23.371s  + 1.470s  21
14.  Sergio Perez         McLaren-Mercedes      1m23.373s  + 1.472s  13
15.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m23.385s  + 1.484s  17
16.  Nico Hulkenberg      Sauber-Ferrari        1m23.388s  + 1.487s  18
17.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m23.660s  + 1.759s  16
18.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m23.767s  + 1.866s  17
19.  Charles Pic          Caterham-Renault      1m24.775s  + 2.874s  18
20.  Jules Bianchi        Marussia-Cosworth     1m24.793s  + 2.892s  16
21.  Max Chilton          Marussia-Cosworth     1m25.135s  + 3.234s  17
22.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m25.250s  + 3.349s  18

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