Red Bull takes commanding 1-2 in Practice 3

Red Bull Racing has confirmed its favouritism for this afternoon’s qualifying at Albert Park, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finishing one-two in Practice 3.

Vettel ended the session over 0.8s quicker than his team-mate, while Lewis Hamilton was third in the McLaren – over a second adrift of Vettel.

Jenson Button matched his team-mate’s time to be fourth, while Vitaly Petrov rounded out the top five in the Renault entry.

Both HRT entries ventured onto the circuit during Practice 3, with Narain Karthikeyan 17 seconds off the pace after completing five laps.

Team-mate Tonio Liuzzi faired worse, stopping at Turn 4 on his out-lap with a mechanical issue.

Qualifying will be held at 17:00 this evening.

See below for the Practice 3 result

Pos	Driver	Team	Time/Retired	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	1:24.507		15
2	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	1:25.364	0.857	14
3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:25.553	1.046	15
4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:25.567	1.060	16
5	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:25.906	1.399	18
6	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:26.121	1.614	16
7	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:26.417	1.910	17
8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1:26.520	2.013	17
9	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1:26.746	2.239	17
10	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1:26.856	2.349	15
11	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	1:27.008	2.501	17
12	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:27.011	2.504	15
13	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	1:27.066	2.559	14
14	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:27.087	2.580	15
15	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:27.180	2.673	15
16	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1:28.068	3.561	7
17	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:28.077	3.570	9
18	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	1:29.772	5.265	17
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1:30.003	5.496	18
20	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1:30.261	5.754	15
21	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1:30.496	5.989	5
22	Jerome d’Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1:30.704	6.197	18
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1:41.554	17.047	5
24	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	No time		1