Kovalainen tops final practice in Germany

The Finn beat Ferrari's Felipe Massa by 0.072 seconds at the end of the session, with Lewis Hamilton taking third ahead of Renault's Fernando Alonso and the consistently impressive Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso).

Even before the late soft tyre runs, Kovalainen had been the man to beat for much of the session. He usurped early pace-setter Vettel with a 1:16.219 lap - 0.213 seconds quicker than the Toro Rosso - after 20 minutes, and then went 0.361 seconds faster on his next run a quarter of an hour later.

That kept the Finn on top until Massa bolted on a fresh set of harder tyres with 17 minutes to go and improved to 1:15.693, one and a half tenths clear of Kovalainen.

But when the field switched to the softer compound Bridgestones for their last runs, Kovalainen found more time and edged Massa out of first position by lapping in 1:15.621, while the Brazilian failed to improve on his final flying lap.

Kovalainen's teammate Hamilton had to settle for third, having gone off the road briefly on the way out of the stadium section on his final run.

Vettel battled with the front-runners throughout the session and looked set for fourth until Alonso snuck ahead of him in the closing seconds.

Nelson Piquet put the second Renault seventh, behind Jarno Trulli's Toyota, with Mark Webber (Red Bull), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Nico Rosberg (Williams) completing the top ten, the latter having briefly been quickest in the early running.

Raikkonen was delayed by yellow flags on his first soft tyre run then had a sideways moment on his second, leaving him 0.759 seconds off the pace.

BMW's low-key weekend continued, with Robert Kubica slowing on track in the final part of the session after complaining over the radio that his car was pulling to one side under power. He made it back to the pits but did not re-emerge for a soft tyre run so ended the morning slowest of all.

Apart from miscellaneous trips onto the asphalt run-off areas, the session saw few incidents, with Adrian Sutil providing the most notable error when he spun into the gravel on his last run.

Pos  Driver        Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:15.621           18
 2.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:15.693 + 0.072   21
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:15.839 + 0.218   21
 4.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:15.943 + 0.322   18
 5.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:16.037 + 0.416   24
 6.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:16.133 + 0.512   25
 7.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:16.161 + 0.540   21
 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:16.196 + 0.575   19
 9.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:16.380 + 0.759   19
10.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:16.405 + 0.784   20
11.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:16.447 + 0.826   22
12.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:16.515 + 0.894   19
13.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:16.530 + 0.909   18
14.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:16.636 + 1.015   27
15.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:16.808 + 1.187   23
16.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:16.906 + 1.285   24
17.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:16.938 + 1.317   20
18.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:17.189 + 1.568   20
19.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:17.312 + 1.691   22
20.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:17.469 + 1.848   15

All timing unofficial