Vettel on top as the rains continue

As expected, it has been another wet morning at Jerez, so much so that the red flags flew at one point simply due to the amount of standing water on the track. With the weather conditions proving so troublesome, the lap times recorded mean very little as the circuit has been wet all morning.

Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets in his Red Bull Renault once again ahead of Felipe Massa in his Ferrari. Nico Rosberg is next up having taken over driving duties at Mercedes with two-tenths of a second covering the top three.

Pedro de la Rosa is fourth fastest in his Sauber ahead of Paul di Resta who is back in action for the Force India team in his role of test and reserve driver. Rubens Barrichello is sixth with the Williams team reporting that even the practice pit stop programme was curtailed prematurely this morning due to the weather.

Following the hydraulic problems that limited the team to just ten laps on Wednesday, Timo Glock was straight out at the start of the session, only for the German racer to bring out the first red flag of the day after going off at the second turn. He was however able to return to the circuit and put in a much more encouraging 31 laps, recording the seventh fastest time.

Sebastien Buemi is eighth for Toro Rosso Ferrari ahead of Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren while Heikki Kovalainen made his debut as a Lotus driver this morning. However, it has not been a trouble-free session so far for the Finn with a mechanical problem delayed the start to the programme followed by a spin in the T127 at the third turn. Kovalainen is tenth fastest ahead of Vitaly Petrov in the Renault.