Jenson Button tops final Korean GP practice with late effort

The 2009 world champion initially hit the front with 23 minutes of the hour-long session to go in a time of 1m38.005s, but was knocked off the top spot by his team-mate Lewis Hamilton shortly afterwards.

Hamilton looked as though the fastest time would be his as he improved his pace to 1m37.199s with five minutes to go on supersoft tyres. But a later attempt to go even quicker was spoiled when he came across the slower Mercedes of Michael Schumacher at the twisty final section of the lap.

Free from traffic, Button - fresh from a change of chassis overnight - then grabbed the top spot on his final lap of the session in 1m36.910s, a time 0.289s quicker than Hamilton's.

Mark Webber was Red Bull's top representative in third, ahead of the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa and Schumacher's Mercedes.

Vitaly Petrov was seventh for Renault with Adrian Sutil - very quick in the wet on Friday - next up in his Force India.

World champion Sebastian Vettel was only ninth, the German having flat-spotted a right-front supersoft tyre during a long run midway through the session.

He did have one final attempt on a fresh set of Pirellis, but was unable to capitalise on setting the fastest first sector of the session after catching the slower Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari later in the lap.

Nico Rosberg completed the top 10 for Mercedes, ahead of Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi.

Bruno Senna wound up 16th after spinning his Renault at the exit of Turn 13 and breaking his front wing against the wall, while Jarno Trulli understeered off at Turn 14 a minute earlier after locking-up his front-right tyre.

Daniel Ricciardo was another to lose a significant amount of track time, the HRT driver suffering a water leak on his car.


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps
 1.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m36.910s            18
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m37.199s  + 0.289   18
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m37.723s  + 0.813   23
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m38.029s  + 1.119   21
 5.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m38.434s  + 1.524   18
 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m39.559s  + 2.649   23
 7.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m39.612s  + 2.702   20
 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m39.660s  + 2.750   22
 9.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m39.695s  + 2.785   22
10.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m39.743s  + 2.833   25
11.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m39.847s  + 2.937   22
12.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.851s  + 2.941   20
13.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.964s  + 3.054   21
14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m40.005s  + 3.095   17
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m40.030s  + 3.120   18
16.  Bruno Senna           Renault                1m40.451s  + 3.541   28
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m40.529s  + 3.619   20
18.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m40.711s  + 3.801   22
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault          1m41.909s  + 4.999   18
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault          1m41.945s  + 5.035   13
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m43.275s  + 6.365   19
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.377s  + 7.467   16
23.  Vitantonio Liuzzi     HRT-Cosworth           1m44.421s  + 7.511   22
24.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth           1m45.958s  + 8.233   11


All Timing Unofficial