Sebastian Vettel goes quickest for Red Bull in final Indian Grand Prix practice

Just under four tenths of a second separated the Red Bull and McLaren at the end of the hour, with their respective team-mates Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton third and fourth, ahead of the Ferraris.

The Red Bulls had been in command for the majority of the session, with Webber the first of the big guns to set a quick time, before Vettel hit the front and went ever faster until establishing a 1m26.311s benchmark.

When the late qualifying simulations began, Friday pacesetter Felipe Massa (Ferrari) was first to beat Vettel with a 1m26.058s - though his advantage lasted only moments before Button came through with a 1m25.942s.

The McLaren was deposed by Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, which lapped in 1m25.784s, but Button responded on his second flying lap of the run by jumping 0.6s clear with a 1m25.191s.

That looked like it might be sufficient to keep the Briton on top, as although Hamilton and Webber closed in, they were a few fractions of a second shy of Button's time.

But world champion Vettel was still out and as the chequered flag fell, he produced a 1m24.824s to beat Button by 0.367 seconds and set himself up as pole favourite once again.

Behind Webber, Hamilton and Alonso, sixth-placed Massa's front wing continued to vibrate distinctively for much of the session, before apparently being replaced with a different specification for the final run, when it was more stable.

Force India looks strong heading into qualifying, with Paul di Resta seventh and Adrian Sutil ninth, split by Nico Rosberg's Mercedes. Both Mercedes had been in the top five until the soft tyre runs. Michael Schumacher ended up 11th behind Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso.

Local favourite Narain Karthikeyan had a quick spin at the final corner early on but managed to head all the other 'new' teams' drivers for quite a while in his HRT, before ending the morning 22nd.

The only other significant incident was a spin for Bruno Senna on the Renault driver's last lap, in which he was fortunate to miss the barriers, while plenty of drivers continued to explore the limits of the dusty track with minor errors.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m24.824s            18
 2.  Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m25.191s  + 0.367s  15
 3.  Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m25.203s  + 0.379s  19
 4.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m25.288s  + 0.464s  16
 5.  Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m25.784s  + 0.960s  17
 6.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m26.058s  + 1.234s  16
 7.  Paul di Resta       Force India-Mercedes  1m26.785s  + 1.961s  19
 8.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m26.873s  + 2.049s  22
 9.  Adrian Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  1m26.958s  + 2.134s  19
10.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.146s  + 2.322s  20
11.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m27.217s  + 2.393s  21
12.  Bruno Senna         Renault               1m27.235s  + 2.411s  20
13.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.262s  + 2.438s  19
14.  Vitaly Petrov       Renault               1m27.280s  + 2.456s  18
15.  Jaime Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.387s  + 2.563s  20
16.  Sergio Perez        Sauber-Ferrari        1m27.749s  + 2.925s  21
17.  Pastor Maldonado    Williams-Cosworth     1m27.793s  + 2.969s  17
18.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams-Cosworth     1m27.875s  + 3.051s  20
19.  Jarno Trulli        Lotus-Renault         1m29.355s  + 4.531s  21
20.  Heikki Kovalainen   Lotus-Renault         1m29.750s  + 4.926s  19
21.  Timo Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1m30.683s  + 5.859s  23
22.  Narain Karthikeyan  HRT-Cosworth          1m30.900s  + 6.076s  25
23.  Jerome D'Ambrosio   Virgin-Cosworth       1m32.851s  + 8.027s  19
24.  Daniel Ricciardo    HRT-Cosworth          1m33.246s  + 8.422s  16

All timing unofficial