Vettel fastest again in final practice

Sebastian Vettel showed he is the man to beat for sheer pace when he clocked the fastest time as Red Bull dominated Saturday’s final practice session ahead of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

The 22-year-old German was fastest again, after topping the times on Friday afternoon, seven-tenths of a second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Australian Mark Webber.

Vettel clocked a best time of one minute and 20.528 seconds on soft tyres in the final minutes after going ahead midway through the session.

Webber, 33, who pushed hard to keep pace with his younger team-mate, was so frustrated at the end of the session that he pulled in to the pits, in his car, and stormed away without giving any prior notice.

He was clearly unhappy, but his feelings were nothing compared to those of the other teams’ drivers who believe that the Red Bulls are almost unbeatable at the Circuit de Catalunya and, therefore, hot favourites to win this weekend’s race and the championship.

The Red Bulls have taken pole position at all four races so far this year — Vettel three times, Webber once — and look set to do the same again in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.

Briton Lewis Hamilton, 25, the 2008 champion, was third fastest for McLaren after leading the time-sheets for half an hour, but he was eight-tenths slower than the flying Vettel as he edged ahead of his team-mate defending champion and current leader compatriot Jenson Button.

Button, on Friday, had said he felt the Red Bulls were currently ‘untouchable’, a sentiment shared by local hero two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, who described them as unbeatable.

Alonso was eighth at the end of the morning’s final practice.

Michael Schumacher continued his stirring improvement in form in his ‘new’ updated Mercedes car by winding up fifth quickest and outpacing his team-mate and fellow-German Nico Rosberg for the third session running.

Brazilian Felipe Massa was sixth in the second Ferrari ahead of Rosberg, with Alonso eighth, Pole Robert Kubica ninth for Renault and German Adrian Sutil 10^th for Force India.

The session was run in improving, dry and sunny conditions after overnight rain, which left the track ‘green’ and a little less ‘grippy’ as the sun rose to take the track temperature to 24 degrees Celsius.

Russian Vitaly Petrov provided the only major alarm in the session when he suffered a big loss of control and went off at turn four after 20 minutes in his Renault. His car was badly damaged, requiring extensive repairs, but he was unhurt.