Sebastian Vettel was comfortably quickest in the Saturday morning practice session at Buddh International Circuit.
The Red Bull was fastest throughout most of the session, setting a time of 1’26.311 on the hard tyres, just over a tenth of a second quicker than his team mate.
He slipped from the top spot towards the end of the session as Felipe Massa and Jenson Button did their first runs on soft tyres.
But when Vettel put the quicker rubber on he returned to the top of the times with his customary last-lap effort. He was the only driver to lap the track in less than 85 seconds, setting a fastest time of 1’24.824.
Button was second ahead of Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton, followed by the two Ferraris.
Massa’s front wing was seen flexing from side to side at high speeds during the session, sending up sparks from the endplates. This ceased to happen after Ferrari switched wings on the car.
Paul di Resta was seventh-quickest for Force India with Nico Rosberg between himself and team mate Adrian Sutil. Sebastien Buemi completed the top ten.
The new track continued to catch drivers out and there were several more spins and dusty off-track moments throughout the session. However there was no repeat of yesterday’s crashes.
Combined practice times
| Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | FP3 | Sat/Fri | Laps |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’27.416 | 1’25.794 | 1’24.824 | -0.97 | 75 |
| 2 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’28.394 | 1’26.714 | 1’25.191 | -1.523 | 66 |
| 3 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’27.428 | 1’26.500 | 1’25.203 | -1.297 | 76 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’26.836 | 1’26.454 | 1’25.288 | -1.166 | 64 |
| 5 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’28.644 | 1’25.706 | 1’26.058 | +0.352 | 71 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’35.899 | 1’25.930 | 1’25.784 | -0.146 | 55 |
| 7 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’29.700 | 1’27.853 | 1’26.785 | -1.068 | 78 |
| 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’28.542 | 1’31.098 | 1’26.873 | -1.669 | 89 |
| 9 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’28.705 | 1’27.316 | 1’26.958 | -0.358 | 76 |
| 10 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’29.219 | 1’27.868 | 1’27.146 | -0.722 | 79 |
| 11 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’28.531 | 1’31.804 | 1’27.217 | -1.314 | 72 |
| 12 | Bruno Senna | Renault | 1’29.799 | 1’27.498 | 1’27.235 | -0.263 | 76 |
| 13 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’29.355 | 1’28.050 | 1’27.262 | -0.788 | 82 |
| 14 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’29.705 | 1’27.890 | 1’27.280 | -0.61 | 77 |
| 15 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’30.566 | 1’28.552 | 1’27.387 | -1.165 | 70 |
| 16 | Sergio Perez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’30.132 | 1’28.289 | 1’27.749 | -0.54 | 82 |
| 17 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Cosworth | 1’30.669 | 1’28.708 | 1’27.793 | -0.915 | 63 |
| 18 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’30.367 | 1’28.691 | 1’27.875 | -0.816 | 70 |
| 19 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Renault | 1’30.818 | 1’29.332 | 1’29.355 | +0.023 | 82 |
| 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault | 1’30.241 | 1’29.750 | -0.491 | 60 | |
| 21 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’32.771 | 1’31.469 | 1’30.683 | -0.786 | 79 |
| 22 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT-Cosworth | 1’34.113 | 1’32.824 | 1’30.900 | -1.924 | 88 |
| 23 | Karun Chandhok | Lotus-Renault | 1’32.487 | 24 | |||
| 24 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’35.796 | 1’32.593 | 1’32.851 | +0.258 | 50 |
| 25 | Daniel Ricciardo | HRT-Cosworth | 1’33.928 | 1’32.768 | 1’33.246 | +0.478 | 79 |
2011 Indian Grand Prix
Image ?é?® Red Bull/Getty images
guido (@guidof1)
29th October 2011, 7:45
looks like seb is on his way to pole position again. havent really worked out yet how badly traffic affected the top 6 drivers on their flying laps. still the red bulls have much more grip in the last 2 corners, i think
bearforce1 (@bearforce1)
29th October 2011, 7:49
Man the Ferrari front wings are sic. What is the story with them?
Raj
29th October 2011, 7:54
It seems out of top 6, only ferrari drivers didn’t manage significant improvement from FP2 & Massa even slower than FP2. so are they hiding some thing or got wrong with set up as track is improving?
HS
29th October 2011, 8:05
Seems like the same problem with Team Lotus.
boundary layer (@boundary-layer)
29th October 2011, 8:19
I noticed that too. My guess would be fuel loads. But what for?
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
29th October 2011, 17:55
I would think perhaps tyres? They’ve not exactly made life easy for Ferrari this year, apart from the odd race or 2 where the super-soft appeared.
BBT (@bbt)
29th October 2011, 8:20
Love that lap from Di Resta….. best of the rest.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
29th October 2011, 8:27
These lap times are just crumbling away all the time. Wonder what times we will see in qualifying? I fully expect a bit of chaos with the track still being slippery.
Fixy (@)
29th October 2011, 11:48
Massa’s returned to normal form… behind Alonso.