Kubica tops wet final practice

The hour-long session started on a sodden track, with all the drivers beginning on the extreme wet tyre. Nico Hulkenberg was the first to take the intermediate as the worst of the rain was washed off the surface.

He set a 1m20.5, while Williams team-mate Rubens Barrichello was on track at the same time on the full wet and was in the 1m22s.

That was the trigger for everyone to switch to inters, and the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso initially had the edge over Lewis Hamilton's McLaren.

Mark Webber did his best lap of that segment earlier, on a wetter track, and was half a second slower, while Sebastian Vettel waited until later and went two tenths quicker than the Ferraris to the top of the timesheet.

The track was pretty quiet in the last half hour as most drivers elected to save their new sets of intermediates for qualifying this afternoon - for which more rain is forecast.

But several ventured out for a qualifying simulation run in the last five minutes, during which Kubica went three tenths quicker than Vettel on a 1m19.1s. Hamilton also improved late on, jumping both Ferraris and ending the session just 0.036s slower than Vettel in third.

Massa and Alonso finished up fourth and fifth, with the top 10 completed by Vitaly Petrov, Sebastien Buemi - who looked confident in the tricky conditions, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button - still not happy with the handling of his McLaren, and Barrichello.

The Red Bull drivers' strategies differed at the end, with Webber getting out of his car and watching the last 20 minutes of the session from the sidelines, while Vettel headed back out for one more lap at the end. Vettel failed to improve anyway, but Webber slid down to 11th completing just six laps during the hour.

Jarno Trulli was once again the quickest of the new teams for Lotus, though Timo Glock was just a tenth slower for Virgin, while Bruno Senna pipped Christian Klien to 23rd spot.


Pos  Driver         Team                     Time              Laps
 1.  Kubica         Renault                  1:19.191            16
 2.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault         1:19.500  + 0.309   16
 3.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes         1:19.536  + 0.345   18
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                  1:19.735  + 0.544    9
 5.  Alonso         Ferrari                  1:19.791  + 0.600    9
 6.  Petrov         Renault                  1:19.887  + 0.696   22
 7.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari       1:20.009  + 0.818   24
 8.  Rosberg        Mercedes                 1:20.056  + 0.865   13
 9.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes         1:20.164  + 0.973   24
10.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth        1:20.320  + 1.129   13
11.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault         1:20.337  + 1.146    6
12.  Schumacher     Mercedes                 1:20.421  + 1.230   18
13.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari           1:20.452  + 1.261   21
14.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth        1:20.535  + 1.344   12
15.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari       1:20.541  + 1.350   26
16.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes     1:20.546  + 1.355   19
17.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes     1:20.613  + 1.422   19
18.  Heidfeld       Sauber-Ferrari           1:20.985  + 1.794   25
19.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth           1:22.326  + 3.135   17
20.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth          1:22.449  + 3.258   26
21.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth           1:22.874  + 3.683   20
22.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth          1:23.194  + 4.003   21
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth             1:23.358  + 4.167   20
24.  Klien          HRT-Cosworth             1:23.650  + 4.459   19