Italian GP: Vettel keeps Red Bull on top in FP3

The session was a battle between Alonso and Red Bull duo Vettel and Mark Webber throughout.

Vettel repeated his Friday afternoon performance at first with a 1m24.551s lap that was six tenths of a second clear of his two rivals.

Alonso could feel there was more speed to come though, having abandoned a better lap due to yellow flags for Paul di Resta crashing at the Parabolica.

Ferrari had previously tried slipstreaming tactics, with Alonso and Felipe Massa taking turns to tow each other round on their first runs.

When they switched to softer tyres for the final laps, Vettel improved first to a 1m24.478s, then a 1m24.360s.

Alonso took second from Webber as both also improved on each of their last runs.

But the order remained the same, with Alonso in a Red Bull sandwich and the trio covered by 0.317s.

Lewis Hamilton ultimately got within 0.035s of Webber in his Mercedes.

His team-mate Nico Rosberg will go into qualifying somewhat compromised as a technical problem limited him to only five laps in the session.

McLaren had an encouraging morning as Sergio Perez took fifth and Jenson Button eighth after a long top-five spell.

Toro Rosso, which won at Monza with Vettel in 2008, also showed great promise as Red Bull-bound Daniel Ricciardo blasted in two rapid laps on his final run to earn sixth ahead of Massa.

Pastor Maldonado put Williams in the top 10 in ninth, as Lotus slumped to 10th and 14th with Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean.

Aside from di Resta's Parabolica accident, which he put down to a technical breakage on his Force India, there were also incidents at the Ascaris for Adrian Sutil and Jean-Eric Vergne. Both continued unscathed.

Pos Driver                Team                    Time        Gap    Laps
 1. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        1m24.360s          18
 2. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                 1m24.643s  +0.283  13
 3. Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault        1m24.677s  +0.317  22
 4. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes                1m24.712s  +0.352  17
 5. Sergio Perez          McLaren-Mercedes        1m24.864s  +0.504  19
 6. Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m24.865s  +0.505  19
 7. Felipe Massa          Ferrari                 1m24.995s  +0.635  14
 8. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1m25.103s  +0.743  15
 9. Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault        1m25.116s  +0.756  20
10. Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault           1m25.120s  +0.760  18
11. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m25.136s  +0.776  16
12. Nico Hulkenberg       Sauber-Ferrari          1m25.273s  +0.913  21
13. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari          1m25.324s  +0.964  22
14. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault           1m25.499s  +1.139  17
15. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault        1m25.660s  +1.300  21
16. Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1m25.702s  +1.342  19
17. Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes    1m26.120s  +1.760  11
18. Charles Pic           Caterham-Renault        1m26.607s  +2.247  21
19. Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault        1m27.172s  +2.812  20
20. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth       1m27.605s  +3.245  18
21. Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth       1m27.665s  +3.305  18
22. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes                1m27.822s  +3.462   5