Vettel stays ahead in final practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

During a dry final practice session ahead of qualifying, Sebastian Vettel posted the best time once again, edging out Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber, thanks to better speed in sectors 1 and 3.

The final practice session at Spa was dry, but with rain threatening to come in, many drivers started their sessions early to at least get a few laps in.

Nearly everybody was focusing on fairly short runs on the harder tyre, with nobody seen running the harder compound during the first 45 minutes.

The session included some hot moments however for Massa and Di Resta at turn 9 as they both faced similar oversteer moments and nearly ended up in the tyre wall on the outside of the turn.

Lewis Hamilton on the other hand was struggling a bit with braking into the bussstop chicane, one spinning his car before returning to the pitlane. A bit later Adrian Sutil demonstrated what brake balance towards the rear can do, as he locked up both front wheels while braking for La Source, only narrowly managing to stay out of the tyre wall.

10 minutes from the end cars are finally fitted with the white walled medium tyres. The first is Di Resta, but Alonso soon improved on that, completing a lap in 1:48.327, a tenth faster than his best in FP3 of 2012 during which he was fastest.

Webber crossed the line a minute later to end up a tenth slower than Alonso while Vettel, even though being slower in S2 went fastest in the final minutes, a mere tenth up on the fastest Ferrari. Interesting is Jean-Eric Vergne's performance, as his continued strong performance got him a 4th quickest time during this session.