Vettel dominates final practice in Oz

Conditions were still overcast in Melbourne for the third and final practice session of the weekend.

It got to a slow start as every driver – bar Liuzzi and Karthikeyan – did an installation lap and headed towards the pits. The first fifteen minutes went by without a single time being posted on the board.

Timo Glock – who said yesterday he was concerned his team may struggle to qualify within 107% of the pole position time – got the action going shortly afterwards. He completed a first flying lap in 1’35’’394. He was soon joined on track by teammate Jérôme d’Ambrosio and Renault’s Petrov.

Meanwhile, Tonio Liuzzi made a brief appearance on track. The Italian had started HRT’s F111 second lap when he had to pull off at Turn 4. He said on the radio that his engine had gone into a false neutral and shut down as soon as he had touched the brakes.

The Albert Park then became busier and saw Sebastian Vettel taking over Vitaly Petrov at the top of the timesheet. As we approached the midway point, Williams’ rookie Pastor Maldonado had an off at Turn 6. Although he managed to avoid contact with the tyre wall, his session ended in the gravel trap.

Halfway through the session, Vettel was leading from Rosberg, Button, Petrov and Webber.

A few minutes later, local favorite Webber set a new benchmark – 1’26’’993. He further improved, but so did Jenson Button, and the McLaren driver, who was on the softer tyre option, topped the times with a 1’25’’961.

Significantly though, Vettel managed to go six tenths of a second faster than him with his hard tyres.

Most of the field gave it a go with the soft tyre in the final part of the session. Petrov made the most of it to move up to P2 but was almost instantly relegated down to third by Red Bull’s Webber. Hamilton then took third, as Vettel lowered the benchmark to an impressive 1’24’’507.

No one could get any close to the German’s time and he ended the session on top. His Red Bull teammate Mark Webber was second fastest… but eight tenths of a second down. Third fastest, Lewis Hamilton was a full second off of Vettel’s pace. Button and Petrov completed the top five.

Ferrari’s Alonso was sixth fastest, 1.6s down on Vettel.

Narain Karthikeyan managed to complete some laps at the wheel of his HRT but was 17 seconds off the pace.