Red Bull thrive despite rain

Red Bull Racing duo Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel proved they will be a threat for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix during final practice.

Following the gloomy grey skies and heavy rain that prevailed over Spa for yesterday's two 90-minute practice sessions, the drivers were today greeted by some lukewarm sunshine for the final period. With temperatures only just nudging 14 degrees centigrade, compared to the 43 that had this part of Belgium sweltering a few weeks ago, it did not take long for the rain to return however.

The teams at least had 45 minutes of the hour-long session to enjoy some dry running before a heavy downpour soaked the seven-kilometre track in the middle of the Ardennes. Webber, who turned 34 yesterday, topped the timesheet with a lap of one minute 46.106secs, while McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had to settle for second, sandwiching the Red Bull duo.

The 2008 world champion, who trails Webber by four points in the standings and is six clear of Vettel, was 0.117secs adrift of the Australian and 0.173secs ahead of the German.

Vettel, however, caused a degree of consternation in his team's garage when his car ground to a halt on the entry into the pit lane just before the rain came.

Vettel's mechanics were forced to push their driver back to the garage where the issue was discovered to be a problem with the air box that was quickly resolved.

Again, as with the standings, reigning champion Jenson Button was fourth in his McLaren just a thousandth of a second behind Vettel.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, who led the way yesterday in the wet and dry, was down in sixth behind Renault's Robert Kubica, with the Spaniard just over half a second off Webber's pace.

Felipe Massa was seventh, followed by Adrian Sutil in his Force India and Williams' Nico Hulkenberg, with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi completing the top 10.

The Mercedes pairing of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, neither of whom have been relatively happy with their set-up, were languishing in 14th and 15th over 1.5secs down.