Alonso fastest in final practice - Britain
Fernando Alonso led the way for Renault in final practice for the British Grand Prix, as damp but drying conditions at Silverstone led to a rush of activity in the last few minutes of the hour-long session
Red Bull's Mark Webber took second, ahead of McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen and the impressive Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso).
With a morning rain shower having doused the circuit prior to practice, times were initially over 15 seconds slower than yesterday's as drivers toyed with extreme wet tyres before switching to 'intermediates' as the circuit began to dry.
Inevitably this meant that the order changed frenetically throughout the session, as track conditions improved with every minute.
With just under 20 minutes to go, Nick Heidfeld became the first man to experiment with dry weather tyres, and his decision proved to be a wise one, as the BMW driver immediately beat Felipe Massa's previous benchmark by four seconds, and then found another two seconds on his next lap.
Heidfeld's times prompted a wholesale switch to 'slicks', and an even more chaotic scene on the timing screens in the remaining quarter of an hour, as the top spot swapped between Alonso, Timo Glock (Toyota) and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) in quick succession, before Webber hit the front with nine minutes remaining.
In the closing minutes many of the field decided that conditions were now good enough to try the softer dry tyre. Kovalainen was the first to do so and produced a 1:21.266 lap to beat Webber by just over half a second.
Many others followed Kovalainen's example, but his time remained the benchmark until Alonso lapped in 1:20.740 with his last lap. Moments later, Webber leaped back up to second, 0.248 seconds slower than Alonso, while Vettel came within 0.011 seconds of beating Kovalainen to third.
Lewis Hamilton completed the top five in his McLaren, with the Ferraris back in ninth (Raikkonen) and 12th (Felipe Massa).
Despite the tricky conditions causing numerous slides, most drivers managed to stay out of trouble. Having crashed on the exit of the Abbey chicane yesterday, Kazuki Nakajima spun his Williams on the entry to the corner this morning, but rejoined without drama. Jarno Trulli also had a harmless spin at Club in his Toyota.
David Coulthard had to sit out much of the session due to a technical problem on his Red Bull, and was stranded in the garage when the circuit dried out. That left him at the tail of the order and 10 seconds off the pace as the rest of the field improved on slicks.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Alonso Renault (B) 1:20.740 16 2. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:20.988 + 0.248 18 3. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:21.266 + 0.526 14 4. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:21.277 + 0.537 19 5. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:21.668 + 0.928 14 6. Piquet Renault (B) 1:21.786 + 1.046 14 7. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:22.059 + 1.319 21 8. Glock Toyota (B) 1:22.183 + 1.443 21 9. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) 1:22.355 + 1.615 20 10. Barrichello Honda (B) 1:22.387 + 1.647 17 11. Button Honda (B) 1:22.440 + 1.700 19 12. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:22.461 + 1.721 20 13. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) 1:22.544 + 1.804 18 14. Trulli Toyota (B) 1:22.556 + 1.816 20 15. Heidfeld BMW Sauber (B) 1:22.916 + 2.176 22 16. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:23.028 + 2.288 17 17. Sutil Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:23.049 + 2.309 22 18. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:23.112 + 2.372 21 19. Kubica BMW Sauber (B) 1:23.282 + 2.542 20 20. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:32.119 + 11.379 6 All timing unofficial
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