Rain ruins final practice

Heavy rain caused havoc during final practice ahead of tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix.

The 22-car Formula One field enjoyed just 20 minutes of dry running at the start of the hour-long session in which they managed only a handful of meaningful laps before the rain hit Melbourne with a sharp deluge.

The rain did ease off, but with more forecast around qualifying, after a pause of 15 minutes the teams sent their drivers back out for the final 25 minutes to understand the track in wet conditions.

It meant the leading times were all done in the dry, with Lotus' Romain Grosjean at the top of the timesheet, but with his lap of one minute 26.929secs a second behind Sebastian Vettel's best from yesterday.

That was due to the fact no driver had an opportunity to switch to the faster of the Pirelli tyre compounds being used this weekend, the supersofts.

Reigning three-time champion Vettel, who set the fastest time at the end of both 90-minute sessions yesterday, finished 12th quickest.

Crucially, the 25-year-old German was forced to sit out the last 10 minutes with a hydraulics problem that saw him pull his Red Bull off track after being told to do so by the team.

Depending on the exact technical nature of the issue, Red Bull could face a race against time to rectify the RB9 ahead of qualifying for which he was looking favourite to grab pole position.