» European GP 3rd Practice: Vettel shows glimpse of Red Bull pace with fastest time

Sebastian Vettel has thrown his and Red Bull’s hat into the ring as a potential race-winner, posting his session-leading fastest time at the end of the final practice session before qualifying for the European Grand Prix.

The German’s fastest time – a 1:38.052 – was set on a low-fuel soft-tyre shod run, where the ‘F-duct’ equipped RB6 rocketed around the Valencia circuit to snatch top slot from Robert Kubica, with the Renault driver looking very rapid in his heavily modified car.

The final ten minutes of the session were manic, as many drivers ran on fumes and soft tyres to simulate qualifying runs, ahead of one of the most crucial 60-minute knock-out sessions of the championship season.

With there never having been a passing move worthy of the name at Valencia, a good qualifying result will be the first step in having a possible shot at race victory for tomorrow’s race.

To see the top eighteen runners covered by just over 1.6 seconds will give some indication that we could see a few surprises in this afternoon’s qualifying session, and there could be a few high-profile casualties not making it into the top-ten shoot-out for pole position.

Indeed, the timing sheets for this session mirror what has turned out to be a surprisingly competitive and closely fought weekend so far.

For instance, both McLarens barely scraped into the top-ten, and Michael Schumacher was a lowly 15th overall.

Those who managed to weave together a quick lap included the likes of Rubens Barrichello, who vaulted to sixth on the timing boards with his last-gasp effort.

2010 European GP Practice 3 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault	1:38.052	14
2.	Robert Kubica	Renault	+ 0.102	17
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault	+ 0.261	13
4.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+ 0.448	17
5.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+ 0.461	18
6.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	+ 0.571	15
7.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	+ 0.624	17
8.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+ 0.634	16
9.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	+ 0.717	16
10.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	+ 0.764	15
11.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	+ 0.770	15
12.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 0.998	16
13.	Nico Hülkenberg	Williams Cosworth	+ 1.053	15
14.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	+ 1.061	16
15.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	+ 1.170	14
16.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 1.340	18
17.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	+ 1.475	16
18.	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber Ferrari	+ 1.647	16
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Cosworth	+ 3.251	19
20.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Cosworth	+ 3.376	20
21.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 3.903	17
22.	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 4.302	18
23.	Bruno Senna	HRT Cosworth	+ 4.559	18
24.	Karun Chandhok	HRT Cosworth	+ 4.570	19