In the final, and an unusually busy, practice session ahead of today s qualifying, the BMWs of Kubica and Heidfeld topped the timesheets. Perhaps even more surprising was the pace of the two perceived front-running teams of Ferrari and McLaren, with Massa top of the group in eleventh, with fastest McLaren driver, Hamilton, behind him in twelfth.
Whilst the top teams struggled to avoid traffic and incident on-track, Alonso found pace to go third, just under half a second off Kubica s fastest time of 1:25.613 a time almost a second faster than anything else we ve seen this weekend. Heidfeld couldn t overhaul his team-mate by the end of the session, and finished second with a time 0.337 seconds slower.
The second Renault of Piquet again struggled, finishing fifteenth after a visit to the gravel trap at Turn Three. Behind Alonso lay Rosberg in the Toyota powered Williams F1, with Coulthard and Webber behind him in fifth and sixth in their Renault powered Red Bull cars.
Button finally gave Honda a reason to be optimistic, finishing seventh just 0.9 seconds behind the leading BMW. Vettel, Fisichella and Trulli completed the top ten.
Unofficial Times:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Kubica BMW Sauber 1:25.613 18 2. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:25.950 + 0.337 16 3. Alonso Renault 1:26.082 + 0.469 14 4. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:26.171 + 0.558 17 5. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:26.385 + 0.772 14 6. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:26.407 + 0.794 17 7. Button Honda 1:26.502 + 0.889 18 8. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.663 + 1.050 18 9. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 1:26.682 + 1.069 18 10. Trulli Toyota 1:26.882 + 1.269 11 11. Massa Ferrari 1:27.020 + 1.407 19 12. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.084 + 1.471 14 13. Glock Toyota 1:27.162 + 1.549 15 14. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:27.163 + 1.550 17 15. Piquet Renault 1:27.284 + 1.671 13 16. Barrichello Honda 1:27.333 + 1.720 18 17. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1:27.489 + 1.876 18 18. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:27.578 + 1.965 17 19. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:27.601 + 1.988 15 20. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.992 + 2.379 15 21. Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.363 + 2.750 13 22. Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.912 + 3.299 15
