Sutil fastest in final Valencia practice

The German set the fastest time of the weekend - a 1m39.143s - on his final lap of the session, having survived a late attack from Kazuki Nakajima, Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen.

The Force India driver had been quickest just before the session was red-flagged after 28 minutes to clear away Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull, which suffered a major mechanical failure on the track.

The RB5 left significant amounts of debris and oil on the third sector of the track and it took circuit officials another 28 minutes to make the track usable again.

The amount of cement dust laid down hindered those drivers that tried to improve when the track was reopened in the final four minutes of the session, and it was only on their final laps that the order changed at the top.

Until then, world champion Lewis Hamilton had been setting the pace on a track that had already collected quite a lot of dust overnight.

The McLaren driver, who missed a large part of yesterday's afternoon session after damaging his car, worked through a number of increasingly fast laps until he set his best of 1m39.950s after 20 minutes.

Behind him, Sutil, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean and Kubica had squabbled over second place.

That was until Sutil, whose Force India has looked strong all weekend, went quickest of all on a 1m39.897s, just before Vettel's engine apparently failed.

In the final four minutes, Sutil dropped to fourth on the order before bouncing back with his final flier.

Nakajima took second ahead of Kubica, Kovalainen, Rosberg and Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Force India.

Button was seventh, Hamilton eighth and Jarno Trulli and Grosjean - who was quickest at one point early on - completed the top ten.

Ferrari's Luca Badoer ended the session last - 3.055 seconds away from Sutil's time.

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time              Laps
 1.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:39.143           12
 2.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:39.247 + 0.104   12
 3.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  1:39.513 + 0.370   12
 4.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:39.553 + 0.410    8
 5.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:39.732 + 0.589   11
 6.  Fisichella    Force India-Mercedes (B)  1:39.764 + 0.621   12
 7.  Button        Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:39.883 + 0.740   10
 8.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:39.950 + 0.807   12
 9.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:40.017 + 0.874   11
10.  Grosjean      Renault              (B)  1:40.088 + 0.945   11
11.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:40.118 + 0.975   12
12.  Barrichello   Brawn GP-Mercedes    (B)  1:40.192 + 1.049   10
13.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  1:40.230 + 1.087   12
14.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:40.260 + 1.117   12
15.  Alonso        Renault              (B)  1:40.402 + 1.259    9
16.  Glock         Toyota               (B)  1:40.443 + 1.300   10
17.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:40.879 + 1.736   10
18.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:40.916 + 1.773    6
19.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:41.125 + 1.982   12
20.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:42.198 + 3.055   14

All timing unofficial