Rahal leads final practice

The Team Lebanon driver displaced Team Great Britain's Robbie Kerr at the top of the time sheets in the closing stages of the one-hour session with a time of 1:48.252.

Kerr had topped the timesheets for much of the session after pipping Team France's Nicolas Lapierre by just three-thousandths of a second early in the session. Kerr's performance was doubly impressive, as he had lost much of Friday afternoon's practice with an engine problem.

Nico Hulkenberg continued his strong form with fourth fastest time, although the Team Germany ace was 0.456 seconds off the pace, with Italy's Pierguidi Alessandro an impressive fifth fastest after leaping up the timesheets late in the session to displace Mexico's Salvador Duran and the USA's Phil Gielber.

New Zealand's Jonny Reid was eighth fastest ahead of China's impressive Cheng Congfu and local hero Tomas Enge. Brazil's Tuka Rocha was 11th fastest, the last of the runners within a second of the pace.

Team Ireland's Michael Devaney ended the session 1.769 seconds off the pace in 17th, one place behind Zandvoort sprint race winners South Africa, who replaced the absent Adrian Zaugg with Stephen Simpson.

A1 Team Canada opted to replace nominated lead driver Sean McIntosh with rookie James Hinchcliffe, who raced for the team at the Zandvoort season opener last week.

McIntosh, who won on his last A1 race appearance at Sentual in February, struggled for pace in Friday practice having not driven the car since the pre-season test at Silverstone, ending up 17th. Hinchcliffe ended today's session 14th.

Greece also replaced their expected lead driver Takis Kaitazis with rookie Nikos Zachos after the former spun and caused a red flag during Friday practice.

Team India managed only five laps in the session after Armaan Ebrahim ground to a halt a the pit entry in the early stages of the session. Despite the loss of track time, Ebrahim still outpaced Pakistan's Nur Ali and Singapore's Denis Lian.

Practice times

Pos  Nation          Driver                     Time
 1.  Lebanon         Graham Rahal           1:48.252
 2.  Great Britain   Robbie Kerr            1:48.350  + 0.098
 3.  France          Nicolas Lapierre       1:48.353  + 0.101
 4.  Germany         Niko Hülkenberg        1:48.708  + 0.456
 5.  Italy           Pier Guidi Alessandro  1:48.715  + 0.463
 6.  Mexico          Salvador Duran         1:48.799  + 0.547
 7.  USA             Philip Giebler         1:48.836  + 0.584
 8.  New Zealand     Jonny Reid             1:48.990  + 0.738
 9.  China           Congfu Cheng           1:49.031  + 0.779
10.  Czech Republic  Tomas Enge             1:49.082  + 0.830
11.  Brazil          Tuka Rocha             1:49.248  + 0.996
12.  Malaysia        Alex Yoong             1:49.261  + 1.009
13.  Netherlands     Jeroen Bleekemolen     1:49.483  + 1.231
14.  Canada          James Hinchcliffe      1:49.492  + 1.240
15.  Switzerland     Sebastien Buemi        1:49.719  + 1.467
16.  South Africa    Stephen Simpson        1:49.842  + 1.590
17.  Ireland         Michael Devaney        1:50.021  + 1.769
18.  Indonesia       Ananda Mikola          1:50.342  + 2.090
19.  Australia       Karl Reindler          1:51.394  + 3.142
20.  Greece          Nikos Zachos           1:51.548  + 3.296
21.  India           Armaan Ebrahim         1:51.919  + 3.667
22.  Pakistan        Nur Ali                1:53.094  + 4.842
23.  Singapore       Denis Lian             1:53.847  + 5.595