Sebastian Vettel’s seemingly undeniable march on to an eight successive race victory continued in America as he posted the fastest time in the final practice session.
It was a Red Bull one-two once more as Vettel got the better of team mate Mark Webber by two tenths of a second. Lewis Hamilton was third for Mercedes.
Vettel spent the majority of the one hour session at the top of the times. However, a late switch to the medium compound option tyre by Nico Hulkenberg saw him jump up the order and briefly go fastest. The Sauber driver put a couple of quick laps together, while Mark Webber was baulked by traffic on his first lap on the options. He therefore could not beat Hulkenberg’s lap.
He did however better the time to go fastest a few moments later, before Vettel returned things to normality on his option shod lap. Hamilton was another late improver, knocking Hulkenberg down to fourth fastest.
It was a session of split fortunes for the Lotus drivers with Romain Grosjean fifth fastest, and team mate Heikki Kovalainen thirteenth. Elsewhere the two McLarens got into the top ten, with Jenson Button, who has a three place grid penalty ahead of qualifying, sixth fastest and Sergio Perez eighth. They were split by the second Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, with Valtteri Bottas and Adrian Sutil rounding out the top ten.
It was a quiet session for the Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, with both outside the top ten. Alonso, who topped the first practice session yesterday, could only manage eleventh fastest while Massa was way down the order in seventeenth.
Qualifying ahead of tomorrow’s American Grand Prix commences at 6pm UK time.
