Singapore Practice 3 results

practice session at the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver headed McLaren's Jenson Button by just 0.027 seconds, with Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton next in line.

Red Bull's Vettel, who is chasing an 11th pole of 2011, and McLaren's Hamilton had compromised laps and almost certainly have more pace.

Qualifying on the demanding Marina Bay circuit starts at 1500 BST.

The top five are in a class of their own - Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were sixth and seventh with almost identical times but they were 1.75secs off Webber's pace.

Webber's lap of one minute 46.081 seconds will be an encouragement for the Australian, who was nearly a second slower than Vettel on Friday.

But Vettel had a slow middle sector on his flying lap on the 'super-soft' tyres on which all the leading drivers will qualify and start the race.

The German was fastest by 0.6secs from Alonso after the drivers had completed their runs earlier in the session on the slower but more durable 'soft' tyre.

That suggests Vettel is a strong favourite to start the race from pole position for the 11th time this season.
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2010 - Fernando Alonso - Ferrari
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2008 - Felipe Massa - Ferrari

He can win the title on Sunday if he wins the race, with Alonso lower than third and Button or Webber lower than second.

After an incident-packed day on Friday, Saturday's practice session was relatively uneventful, although Hamilton did have a couple of close calls.

He ran off the track after misjudging his braking into Turn Seven, but rejoined from the escape road without problems, and then on his flying lap on the super-soft tyres he carried a bit too much speed through Turn Seven and ran wide over the kerbs on the exit.

Ferrari and Alonso had been Vettel's closest challengers on Friday, but they appeared to be struggling a little on Saturday.

The Spaniard was 0.315secs slower than Webber's fastest time - although he did clout the wall on the exit of Turn 12 on his flying lap.

He also made a change to the set-up of his car just before that final run.

BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz said: "Alonso's still not happy with his car's set-up, changing both front torsion bars at this late stage of the set-up game. Not that unusual, but not great for Ferrari."

source:bbc