Jenson Button was fastest for the third session in a row at Suzuka in final practice.
The McLaren driver set a 1’31.255 to head the times with ten minutes left to run and it remained unbeaten.
Team mate Lewis Hamilton made it a McLaren one-two but was half a second off his team mate’s time.
Sebastian Vettel’s final flying run put him third on a1’32.122, a tenth of a second faster than Fernando Alonso.
There couldn’t have been a bigger contrast between the conditions of this year’s final practice session and last year’s, when only two drivers set times in pouring rain.
Bright, sunny skies greeted the drivers for today’s final hour of practice.
Approaching the halfway point in the session the red flags came out as Bruno Senna hit the barrier at Spoon curve. The Renault driver lost control of his car at the exit of the corner and hit the wall at the inside of the turn, tearing the front-left wheel of his car.
The session restarted after a seven-minute interruption but Vitantonio Liuzzi wasn’t able to get much more running in. His car came to a stop with an hydraulic problem.
As Narain Karthikeyan drove his car in first practice, and Liuzzi suffered a problem on his car in the second session, the HRT driver has managed just 12 laps so far this weekend.
The Mercedes drivers made an early switch to soft tyres. First Nico Rosberg, then Michael Schumacher headed the times.
Despite an early delay Mark Webber went quickest on the medium tyres, beating Button’s fastest time on the harder rubber.
When Button took to the track on the soft tyres with ten minutes to go he went quickest and no-one was able to beat his time.
Webber ended up fifth ahead of the Felipe Massa, the Mercedes of Schumacher and Rosberg, Vitaly Petrov and Adrian Sutil.
Combined practice times
| Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | FP3 | Sat/Fri | Laps |
| 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’33.634 | 1’31.901 | 1’31.255 | -0.646 | 65 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’33.725 | 1’33.245 | 1’31.762 | -1.483 | 60 |
| 3 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’34.372 | 1’32.075 | 1’32.279 | +0.204 | 74 |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’34.090 | 1’32.095 | 1’32.122 | +0.027 | 75 |
| 5 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’34.426 | 1’32.147 | 1’32.401 | +0.254 | 67 |
| 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’35.585 | 1’32.448 | 1’32.429 | -0.019 | 77 |
| 7 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’36.033 | 1’32.710 | 1’32.725 | +0.015 | 67 |
| 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’38.197 | 1’32.982 | 1’32.878 | -0.104 | 62 |
| 9 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’36.370 | 1’33.446 | 1’33.058 | -0.388 | 69 |
| 10 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’33.790 | 1’33.424 | -0.366 | 50 | |
| 11 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’35.590 | 1’33.681 | 1’33.469 | -0.212 | 76 |
| 12 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’34.937 | 1’33.705 | 1’33.545 | -0.16 | 66 |
| 13 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’36.948 | 1’36.038 | 1’33.818 | -2.22 | 74 |
| 14 | Sergio Perez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’37.103 | 1’34.393 | 1’33.836 | -0.557 | 85 |
| 15 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’36.949 | 1’34.601 | 1’33.990 | -0.611 | 71 |
| 16 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Cosworth | 1’38.446 | 1’38.387 | 1’34.321 | -4.066 | 45 |
| 17 | Bruno Senna | Renault | 1’36.487 | 1’34.557 | 1’35.289 | +0.732 | 50 |
| 18 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’38.331 | 1’37.123 | 1’35.651 | -1.472 | 43 |
| 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault | 1’36.225 | 1’36.912 | +0.687 | 49 | |
| 20 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Renault | 1’39.168 | 1’39.800 | 1’36.327 | -2.841 | 50 |
| 21 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1’36.700 | 21 | |||
| 22 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’40.872 | 1’37.440 | 1’38.011 | +0.571 | 59 |
| 23 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’41.019 | 1’38.093 | 1’37.938 | -0.155 | 71 |
| 24 | Daniel Ricciardo | HRT-Cosworth | 1’41.106 | 1’38.763 | 1’38.355 | -0.408 | 80 |
| 25 | Karun Chandhok | Lotus-Renault | 1’39.946 | 22 | |||
| 26 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | HRT-Cosworth | 1’42.480 | 1’41.097 | -1.383 | 12 | |
| 27 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT-Cosworth | 1’41.775 | 25 |
Image ?? McLaren
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
8th October 2011, 4:17
Button is looking extraordinarily switched-on this weekend, but I think the smart money is still on Vettel for pole.
raymondu999 (@raymondu999)
8th October 2011, 4:30
Agreed. Though I would never have guessed that. Suzuka is not a circuit where you can be smooth and be fast usually. You have to push and carry as much speed as you can while not ******* up; which is not easy
BasCB (@bascb)
8th October 2011, 4:57
Yes, I expect Vettel to pull out his customary 3-8 tenths in Q3 to put it there again. Maybe he will have one, or both McLarens pretty close though so he will really have to do both fast laps instead of breaking off as he has done recently.
Fixy (@)
8th October 2011, 12:35
You’re right once again! Vettel’s advantage has always been great in qualifying, but Jenson has been driving so well he cut it to just 9 thousandths!
wasiF1 (@wasif1)
8th October 2011, 4:32
Button is doing his job right.
Lachie (@lachie)
8th October 2011, 4:48
Stunning lap from Vettel, never saw it coming….. wait what session was this?
west (@west)
8th October 2011, 4:51
Both button and hamilton looks confident this weekend and they seem to have an advantage on the red bull so it looks a solid weekend for marclen.
Manter MBS (@sridharbhanu)
8th October 2011, 4:57
So, FI back in top ten. But as clubforce said, P9 to P15 gap is less than a second. Q2 & Q3 should be very interesting.
west (@west)
8th October 2011, 5:04
Not 100% awake i meant mclaren are on fire this weekend we need this pole at suzuka and it will be great to be on pole
Eggry (@eggry)
8th October 2011, 5:41
Well done Button, still I fear Redbull’s counter attack.
vho (@)
8th October 2011, 5:56
I’d still like to see both McLarens qualify ahead of the two Red Bulls given (if the predictions are right) the RBs are about 1sec+ faster on the heavier fuel load. This should make top viewing for the start of the race and towards the end if RB ain’t able to make much gains from their race start. Would also be nice to see Alonso do another lightning start to get ahead of Vettel. Would be good to see how Vettel copes with having the faster car in the heavy fuel load and having to overtake – wonder what is appetite for risk would be given he only need 1 point to secure the WDC.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
8th October 2011, 9:26
Looks like Button is on it this weekend! Here’s hoping he can do something magic from P2.