Rosberg was just over half a second down, with Webber and Hamilton in close
attendance, around three quarters of a second back, and clearly still
needing to improve to have any chance of pole.
Alonso was a second down and on his own in sixth as Sergio Perez in his
McLaren, under pressure to perform this weekend with his job on the line,
was seventh and 1.327secs adrift.
Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, Jenson Button in his McLaren and Ferrari’s Felipe
Massa completed the top 10, the latter at least only 0.7secs behind
team-mate Alonso following a miserable Friday in the car.
Raikkonen, 88 points behind Vettel and with his title chances hanging by a
thread, was a lowly 12th, two seconds off the pace.
Force India’s Paul Di Resta could only manage 16th in what appeared to
seemingly be another tricky session for the Scot, who spun at one point,
although he at least finished ahead of team-mate Adrian Sutil who was down
in 18th.
At the rear of the field and nearly six seconds down was Marussia’s Max
Chilton, with team-mate Jules Bianchi 0.8secs ahead of him.
Earlier in the session, on the medium tyres, Webber set the quickest time with
a lap of 1:46.220, a fraction of a second ahead of Vettel, with Hamilton
third quickest and a quarter of a second back.
Third practice times:
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1min 44.173secs
2 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus 1:44.364
3 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 1:44.741
4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:44.906
5 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes 1:44.921
6 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:45.257
7 Sergio Perez (Mex) McLaren 1:45.500
8 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber 1:45.876
9 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:45.890
10 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:45.935
11 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Toro Rosso 1:46.084
12 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus 1:46.147
13 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:46.338
14 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso 1:46.358
15 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:46.660
16 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:46.879
17 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber 1:46.893
18 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:47.249
19 Giedo van der Garde (Ned) Caterham 1:48.931
20 Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham 1:49.037
21 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia 1:49.182
22 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:49.982
(Edited by Giles Mole)