Vettel quickest in final practice

The world champion finished with a time of 1m13.381s to outpace Ferrari's Fernando Alonso by over three tenths in a session that finished a few seconds ahead of schedule because of a crash by Pedro de la Rosa.

Nico Rosberg was third quickest for Mercedes, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in fourth and the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton in fifth and sixth.

De la Rosa, replacing the unwell Sergio Perez at Sauber, caused a red flag with less than a minute left after crashing against the well at the exit of Turn 9. The session was not restarted.

Mark Webber had another disappointing day after being hit by KERS issues, the Australian unable to leave his garage as mechanics continued to work on his car.

The Mercedes duo were the early pace-setters, with Rosberg shooting to the top of the times with a lap of 1m15.034s. He was followed by team-mate Michael Schumacher initially, but Button, Vitaly Petrov and then more drivers relegated the German down to seventh with some 40 minutes left.

Button moved to first place minutes later when he became the first man to lap in the 1m14s, but he did not last long there, as Vettel showed his speed and stopped the clock on 1m14.126s with the soft rubber.

Rosberg also made a significant improvement to place himself in second, less than a tenth behind the world champion.

On the following lap, Rosberg moved to the top again thanks to another run with his super softs, the Mercedes man lapping in the 1m13s for the first time this weekend.

Alonso went for his first qualifying simulation with 17 minutes to go but, despite using super soft tyres, the Spaniard could not beat Rosberg's time. He came as close as possible, however, the Ferrari driver setting the exact same time as the Mercedes racer - 1m13.919s.

Alonso completed a second flying lap with the same set of super softs, but was nearly a tenth of a second slower, like team-mate Massa just seconds earlier.

On his third lap, however, the Spanish driver outpaced Rosberg with a lap of 1m13.701s as the sky become very dark and threatened rain for qualifying.

Vettel started his first run on super softs with five minutes remaining, but the German aborted his first attempt because of traffic. On the second lap he moved to first place, however, lapping over three tenths quicker than Alonso.

Pos  Driver                Team                    Time               Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        1m13.381s            21
 2.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                 1m13.701s  + 0.320   21
 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes                1m13.919s  + 0.538   29
 4.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                 1m13.956s  + 0.575   20
 5.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1m14.335s  + 0.954   18
 6.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes        1m14.469s  + 1.088   16
 7.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes                1m14.488s  + 1.107   23
 8.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                 1m14.917s  + 1.536   23
 9.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes    1m15.217s  + 1.836   18
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes    1m15.243s  + 1.862   17
11.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth       1m15.312s  + 1.931   19
12.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                 1m15.350s  + 1.969   22
13.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m16.138s  + 2.757   17
14.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m16.145s  + 2.764   19
15.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari          1m16.236s  + 2.855   21
16.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1m16.438s  + 3.057   21
17.  Pedro de la Rosa      Sauber-Ferrari          1m16.706s  + 3.325   22
18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault           1m17.093s  + 3.712   21
19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault           1m17.523s  + 4.142   24
20.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth            1m18.910s  + 5.529   20
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth         1m19.073s  + 5.692   19
22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth            1m19.213s  + 5.832   22
23.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth         1m20.475s  + 7.094   19
24.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault        No time

All Timing Unofficial