Vettel fastest in FP3

Vettel fastest in FP3

Sebastian Vettel continued his dominance of Korean Grand Prix practice, topping the timesheet in FP3.
  
Having been the quickest man yesterday in FP2, the Red Bull Racing driver continued his charge and finished the session half a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren man his nearest rival. Behind them came the second McLaren of Jenson Button in third, Romain Grosjean was ahead of Kimi Räikkönen as Lotus took fourth and fifth, Fernando Alonso was sixth for Ferrari, Mark Webber seventh in the second Red Bull, Felipe Massa eighth for Ferrari, Pastor Maldonado ninth for Williams and Nico Hülkenberg tenth for Force India. 
   
The first half of the session was ran exclusively on the soft tyre, with the Red Bull of Webber fastest at the halfway point with a time of 1:38.766. Vettel went faster shortly afterwards with 1:38.215 and continued to set purple sectors. Webber was unable to respond, having returned to the garage, as Bruno Senna was the first man to appear on the supersoft rubber, with 25 minutes of the session remaining. He was followed by the rest of the field – except Webber, his early return to the pitlane had been triggered by engine issues which would keep him in the garage for the remainder of the session as Renault technicians swarmed around his car.
   
The absence of his team-mate gave Vettel a clear run. On the red-banded Pirellis he nibbled away at his time, eventually coming down to 1.37.642 in the final minutes of the session. Nobody could match that. Outside the top ten Sergio Pérez was 11th for Sauber, followed by the Mercedes with Nico Rosberg ahead of Michael Schumacher. Paul di Resta was 14th in the second Force India, Kamui Kobayashi 15th for Sauber. Jean-Eric Vergne headed Daniel Ricciardo as the Toro Rossos came next and Bruno Senna was 18th for Williams. The Caterhams were 19th and 20th with Vitaly Petrov in front of Heikki Kovalainen, Charles Pic was quicker than Timo Glock for Marussia and Narain Karthikeyan was the faster of the HRTs with Pedro de la Rosa 24th and last.