Vettel leads the way in final practice

But the team also had a frightening moment when the nose section on pacesetter Sebastian Vettel's car came loose on his final run.

Vettel had already set a 1m30.958s lap to depose Fernando Alonso's Ferrari from the top spot, and was set to go even quicker when his car's nose box suddenly detached at the top and dropped down on the approach to Abbey, leaving the front wing scraping on the ground.

The German nursed the car back to the pits, and his time remained unbeaten.

Mark Webber completed a Red Bull one-two, 0.034 seconds behind Vettel, with Alonso third despite parking in the Ferrari garage with a problem in the closing minutes. He had been quickest until Red Bull's late surge.

Nico Rosberg showed encouraging form for Mercedes in fourth, ahead of Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa and mid-session leader Robert Kubica (Renault).

It was a low-key hour for McLaren after the removal of its exhaust-blown diffuser though, with local heroes Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button only seventh and 12th.

Michael Schumacher put the second Mercedes in the top ten in eighth, ahead of a strong run from Sauber's Pedro de la Rosa and Williams's Rubens Barrichello.

Other drivers hampered by issues included Adrian Sutil (whose Force India had a gearbox problem) and Jarno Trulli (Lotus), who lost more yet track time to hydraulic problems. Timo Glock managed the least mileage of all, a throttle glitch limiting his Virgin to just six laps.


Pos  Driver         Team                    Time              Laps
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault        1:30.958            14
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault        1:30.992  + 0.034   15
 3.  Alonso         Ferrari                 1:31.101  + 0.143   10
 4.  Rosberg        Mercedes                1:31.188  + 0.230   15
 5.  Massa          Ferrari                 1:31.240  + 0.282   16
 6.  Kubica         Renault                 1:31.519  + 0.561   18
 7.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes        1:31.549  + 0.591   16
 8.  Schumacher     Mercedes                1:31.555  + 0.597   14
 9.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari          1:31.559  + 0.601   18
10.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1:31.581  + 0.623   16
11.  Petrov         Renault                 1:31.698  + 0.740   17
12.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1:31.703  + 0.745   16
13.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth       1:31.867  + 0.909   17
14.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari          1:31.947  + 0.989   16
15.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1:31.994  + 1.036   13
16.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:32.235  + 1.277   18
17.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1:32.331  + 1.373   20
18.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes    1:32.723  + 1.765   18
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth          1:34.339  + 3.381   20
20.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth         1:35.479  + 4.521   17
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth          1:36.098  + 5.140   11
22.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth            1:36.286  + 5.328   16
23.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth         1:36.640  + 5.682    6
24.  Yamamoto       HRT-Cosworth            1:37.178  + 6.220   18

All Timing Unofficial