Vettel on top again before rain arrives

For the second practice session in a row Sebastian Vettel led the times by a tiny margin.

The Ferrari driver was leading Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes by just 17 thousandths of a second when heavy rain arrived at the Red Bull Ring, preventing any further improvements.

Most drivers had made an early switch to super-soft tyres to do their qualifying performance runs when the session was red-flagged after Fernando Alonso came to a stop on the start/finish straight. A clutch of cars queued up to rejoin the track as soon as the session restarted, but by then the rain had arrived, leaving them to tiptoe around the track on their slick tyres.

Sergio Perez was one of few drivers to complete a lap on the super-softs before the session was stopped and moved up to fourth place behind Kimi Raikkonen.

Several drivers took to the track on wet weather rubber when the rain eased at the end of the session. Raikkonen and Carlos Sainz Jnr were among those to skid off before the chequered flag fell, but none of the drivers suffered any damage to their cars.

Lotus were among those not to send their drivers out in wet conditions. However Romain Grosjean’s session has already been disrupted by clutch problems.

Third practice visual gaps

Combined practice times