The Indian Grand Prix - Practice 3 Formula 1

Good morning from India. After three hours of practice yesterday, the

weekend is starting to hot up. There is just one more hour of running

before qualifying gets under way. This could be a historic weekend in

the world of Formula 1, as Sebastian Vettel looks to clinch his fourth

consecutive world title, and Red Bull could win the construct this

Championship this weekend, too. Sebastian Vettel has a commanding

lead in the drivers Championship. In the pit lane today, we have Tom

Clarkson and Jennie Gow. Tom, yesterday was a busy day for the

teams, and a costly one for Williams. Yes, they have been hit

with a second final 60,000 euros the first one came at Suzuka, two weeks

ago, when Pastor Maldonado lost a wheel during pack this. It was

slightly different yesterday, the wheel nut coming off, but the wheels

stayed on, which was crucial in the FIA's this issue and not to punish

them further. But the team has had to say that they will do extra

visual checks for the rest of the weekend, every time they put a wheel

on the car. Voters picked up a fine of 400 euros -- Lotus -- when they

were caught with Kimi Raikkonen's are speeding in the pit lane. Some

people in the paddock saying that since Kimi signed for Ferrari, he

has lost a certain amount of interest with the Lotus team. He

will be looking to improve hopefully today. He will need to, I think,

because he has not qualified in the top eight at the last four races,

and if you are going to wrestle with the Red Bulls on a Sunday afternoon,

you need to start higher up the grid. Yes, but you should not

underrate the efforts of another strong performance from Roman

Grosjean yesterday. Fernando Alonso has almost conceded defeat to

Sebastian Vettel in this Championship. Within the next 24

hours, it might be mathematically all over, anyway. Ben Edwards is in

the commentary box. Sebastian has won the only two previous races

here, and he has always been fastest in practice to as well... Indeed,

but there was one? About yesterday's performance, which was how the Red

Bull tells with the soft tyre which Pirelli have brought here this

weekend. That is something we will be looking at today. Yes, because

they are looking as though they are changing the tires very early, but

you need to make sure you get enough laps down under it at the beginning

of the race, so that you do not drop into slow traffic. Pit stop strategy

tomorrow will be very interesting. We will keep an eye on that. Let's

just remind you on the situation from yesterday, with first and

second for Red Bull, in both sessions. But as you can see from

that message on the screens, there is a delay to the start of this

session today, because of visibility problems. There is a haze around the

track again, although I have thought it does not look quite as bad as

yesterday morning. But they are talking about it starting in 15

minutes' time, this session. It is difficult, because this long

straight, you come down there, and the straight goes up and down as

well, so you do lose vision of the cars for a while. So you do have

issues regarding judgment on distance. It is better to have a 15

minute delay them an accident. And it means the session will only last

for 45 minutes now, because they are sticking to the finish time. That is

key, because it means they will be losing valuable setup time. Yes, and

if they do not get that running time on the soft tyre, they will just

have to consolidate everything a little bit. Just to reiterate, the

session is delayed, it will only last for 45 minutes, and it will

start 15 minutes late. We have spoken about the importance of

getting running time, especially as this track seems to involve every

single lap, so how crucial will it be? I would say, from the point of

view of a team, I would be getting out there as soon as possible, to

try to get the soft tyres to last a bit longer. We know the medium tyre

is very durable. The teams who ran it on long runs yesterday, they had

no problems with it. So I would like to get out on the soft tyre pretty

early. But again, the teams are sitting in the garage, waiting for

the track to get better, but from my point of view, they should be

getting out there as as soon as possible. Yesterday, I was told

there were real concerns over the softer tyre, and also about how long

people might try and push it, and we might have a situation where we see

failures again. GARY ANDERSON: The failures we saw

were due to flat spots, and this is a different thing altogether. We can

see Kevin Magnussen sitting on the... May be the side wind on the

back straight will blow the smog away. We saw Kevin Magnussen sitting

there at McLaren, looking forward to getting his opportunity in Formula 1

sometime soon. Going back to the tyres, definitely, the soft tyre

could suffer from flat spotting, which is one of the big problems.

Christian Horner joins me now. Chris Jim, visibility problems at the

moment? It is very foggy. -- Christian. It is important that the

helicopter can fly, so if it has been delayed, then it has been done

for the right reasons. It is easy to come here and say how strong Red

Bull are, but do you have any concerns going into the rest of the

weekend? Loads of things, from KERS to electronics to engines, you name

it. First of all, there is reliability, then there is

performance. So many things can happen. You have got to get

everything right. We have had a very good run, but we have had some

issues along the way as well, losing KERS in qualifying with Seb in

Japan. We had a gearbox issue with Mark in the race before that. So,

there is always something on your mind. Was there a KERS problem at

all. Asked yesterday? At the beginning of the session, there was

a small issue. But it was a software issue rather than any hardware. I

spoke to Sebastian yesterday, and he seems to be in a really good place,

so have you seen him grow in the last few years, or in the last few

races, even? Affinity. We forget how young he is. He is growing up and

mature in as a person. He is only 26 years of age. For what he has

achieved in Formula 1 at such a young age is quite remarkable. But

he is still very much the same guy, he still gets excited about driving

the car. He is just so keen to continue to improve himself and

develop himself. He is a driver who seems to make the most of the tyres,

but do you have any concerns over the durability of the tyres this

weekend? That might be a slight understatement. The two compounds

are fastly different. That is part of the challenge. It is the same for

everyone. You are not going to be doing too many laps on the softer

tyre here, I would not have thought. We saw quite a lot of blistering on

the tyre yesterday. We will see as the circuit rubbers in, but it looks

a very aggressive tyre for this track. We have already heard from

Tom Clarkson that it was a disappointing evening for you

yesterday, being fined 60,000 euros for the second race in a row - were

you surprised by the ruling? No, it was somewhat to be expected. We had

a similar incident in Japan. We respect the FIA decision, we always

do. But of course, it is disappointing that it happened. But

safety is our priority, so we are putting measures in place to make

sure that we do not have a repeat performance. The FIA are satisfied

with those measures. What sort of measures do you have to take? In the

middle of nowhere, in India, it is difficult to change any processes in

the pit stop itself... The guys now have to do a visual check on the on

the wheel nut. We have been doing practices this morning to make sure

that they can do that. We will practice it again in Practice 3 this

morning, before going into qualifying. Do you know if that has

slowed down the pit stop? We anticipated that it might, by maybe

a second or more, but looking at the times of the guys this morning, they

did a great job. Hopefully we will be OK. But we do not want one of

those tyres to come off the car. Moving forward from here, this is

the second problem with wheel retention that you have had, so what

do you have to do in the subsequent weekends? We are working on that

back in the factory. As soon as we have first incident in Japan, the

design office back home is working on producing a system which the FIA

are happy with. For this weekend, what can you expect from your

drivers? Both of them are doing a great job. It has been a really

difficult season for us. We always hope to get into Q3 and qualifying,

and then we see what we can do in the race.

It has been a tough introduction to the world of being a team principal

for Claire Williams, no doubt about it. We saw briefly Fernando Alonso,

and we can barely see the end of the grandstand, which is why we are

still talking, and you are not seeing cars on the track, because

the session has been delayed by 15 minutes, so that it is now only

lasting 45 minutes. Gary, Fernando Alonso seems increasingly frustrated

with the rivalry - do you think he feels comfortable that they are

changing their focus to next year? I think he was a bit more

philosophical when he was speaking earlier this week. I think he has

accepted the fact that Red Bull are going to win this Championship

again, and he might be a bit more positive now that he is always the

main challenger to Red Bull, he is always up there, he reminded us that

in 2009, it was a tough task getting out of Q2, when he was driving for

Renault. GARY ANDERSON: Yes, he has been a

nearly man for too long, though. He saw Ferrari as a big opportunity to

be THE man. The main thing has just been the car performance. It has

never been there to give his driving talent the right approach. Tom

Clarkson, I think you have found Martin Whitmarsh. I have, so what

have we been told, Martin, about this delay? No more than you. We

have been told to start has been delayed by 15 minutes because of

visibility, and the session is therefore shortened. It is difficult

to see what will happen in the next 15 minutes, or in fact now, the next

six minutes, which will change the situation, but we have had no more

information. It does not feel any worse than yesterday morning? No, it

doesn't. I do not know whether this might be a helicopter issue.

Sometimes you cannot run because the helicopter might not be able to take

off to get to the hospital. But that is purely speculation on my part.

From a driving point of view, with a long telephoto lens it looks pretty

bad, and it is pretty bad, but from a driving point of view, this feels

almost sunnier and brighter than we have had since we have been here.

How will this affect your programme? There was talk of radical

setups on Jenson Button's are yesterday... Yes, we would like as

much time as possible on this track. Clearly, everyone has got a priority

to try to run both tyres, looking at how you warm them up with relatively

light fuel for qualifying. So, with those two runs, particularly as the

prime takes a few laps to come in, I do not think there will be much time

for anything else. So I think there will be very quick installs, and

then straight into running one prime and one option. It means there is

going to be a lot of traffic, and it will be quite intense. Inevitably,

someone will get tripped up when they are trying to do their

qualifying simulation. We have been told that the session has been

delayed by a further 15 minutes. Well, that is even worse for us,

because as you know, in the regulations, there is a minimum gap

between this session and the start of qualifying. So, assuming they do

not want to move qualifying, which I am sure they don't, because the

television companies will not want to do so, then this will be a very

hectic half an hour and people will be tripping up over themselves, both

trying to do a qualifying run to see how, on light fuel, you can get the

prime working, but inevitably, also wanting to look at the option. The

option, as we have seen, is quite challenging here. And people will be

wanting to try to make an assessment about how hard you can press on that

option in qualifying without really destroying a tyre before you have to

start a race on it. We hear that the reason for the delay is that the

medical helicopter cannot fly. One final question - Jenson is famous

for doing something different in Q3, so if you get through to Q3,

what are the merits of starting on the prime tomorrow? Well, there is a

lot of merits. I have always been surprised when the covers come off

at the start outside many of the back runners have been on the option

tyres. It works better if you are at the back of let's say the top ten

and you are on prime and those behind you are also on prime because

it means that any early stoppers have traffic, but regrettably that

hasn't worked for us yet, but this is a more extreme example, but it

maybe so extreme indeed that you will find lots of people in Q3 on

the harder tyre. That's possible. That's the game of chess that we

played out during the course of today. Thanks, Martin. Good luck.

Well, Martin Whitmarsh is a considerate man. He is understanding

that you have set your alarms to join us and there are no cars out on

track. The medical helicopter cannot take off because of visibility

problems. That's why there is a delay. Over Martin Whitmarsh's

shoulder, we saw Kevin Magnussen sitting. Gary and Ben, let's talk

about young drivers. We are looking at a driv who is leaving Formula

One. What do you think about the arrival of this very young and

inexperienced Russian coming into Formula One, Gary? It is good to get

some new blood into the Formula One. There is a mid-field group there

that have been in it too long. They haven't really shown. When a guy is

good, you see him climb to the top somehow. We need to get new blood

in. 19 years old, he might be a little bit too new. He might to have

a couple of years in a different formula to help him to understand

the situation because Formula One is very different. Not only are the

cars quicker and demanding, but the whole atmosphere in Formula One is

very different and to learn all that when you are 19 years old might be a

little bit too much for him. We are seeing up on our screens that the

session will start at 11. 20. That's over six minutes away. At least we

are going to be seeing cars on track soon? Yes, they are, but there is

time to hear a quick, but wise word from Niki Lauda. A frustrating

delay. This wouldn't have happened in your day, would it, you would

have gone out anyway? Correct. But it is the helicopter that's

important. Nevertheless, I hope it starts soon so everybody can

practise. Six minutes time and the practise

session will begin. It is frustrating for the team. What are

people saying within Mercedes? If it is only 15 minutes this is OK

because you do an installation lap and you check the car. If the delay

was longer, it would be terrible. It would be 40 minutes for practise

session for the cars to get themselves into line for qualifying.

How important is this weekend for Mercedes and the constructors

battle? I think everybody except Red Bull is suffering for this delay

because they are happy because they have the quickest and best car

around and they can adjust quickly to the delayed practise start, but

everybody else needs to test things and set the car properly and it is

important that we can practise now. So another thing that plays into the

hands of Red Bull as far as you are concerned? If you are the quickest

and the best, but it helps them. I was surprised speaking to Lewis

Hamilton he said yesterday he had given up on a front row. He was

expecting to start on the second row and look for a podium. Conceding to

Red Bull is one of the things that's expected at this time of year? It is

alarming. Since the summer break because Sebastian won five races if

I'm right and this is alarming for everybody. Not only for Mercedes. Do

you think it will carry on next year or do you see the changes with the

engines and with the regulations will leave the door open for

Mercedes wider? I hope for everybody because next year everybody starts

with a new car design, new engines, a big technical work to be done, so

next year it will be more even and then you start to develop. The

advantage, add teams have like Red Bull they develop the car always

further. Next year we start from scratch. So I think the balance next

year could be different. Niki Lauda, thank you very much.

I am joined by Dr Helmut. What's this weekend like? We go to every

race to do the best so we are going here to win and if we win, of

course, we are champions, but as far as I know, Sebastian has to fly back

home so it won't be a big party, but it is not done yet. I think in Abbey

dabby we will have a nice evening. You must be doing very well at Red

Bull. Tell him billion your new Russian driver? It was a difficult

decision, but we were looking at a performance of all three drivers and

from the beginning until the end or until now, it was the form of the

Russian who was showing up and he won a lot of races in GP 3, he won

in F3. He was the best package for the next three or four years for our

junior programme and for Torro Rosso. Is that the best trial for

Formula One? Is that not GP 2 anymore? We had been in the World

Series mainly, but the reason was because all our drivers from the

programme are involved in the simulator programme and if you have

the same event on the same weekend it doesn't work so that's why we

went to Renault 3.5, but on the other hand - he was the one from

Formula 3. He said he didn't feel ready at that time. You are not

going to turn it down if you get an opportunity, are you? That's the

problem? He has done 150 races and he is well prepared. He has a lot of

simulator time and he will be on the simulator during the winter and we

have some very good psychological programmes so we don't throw him

into cold water. He will be well prepared. We will see him in Austin

and Brazil, will we? We are trying. First, we have to get his super

licence and if that's working, yes, we will put him as a Friday driver.

Thank you very much for joining us. Well, everyone is talking about

Sebastian Vettel, but there is plenty of work to be done. Of there

is not a lot of time out there. Everyone will be wanting to refine

their cars. Let's go to Gary and Ben.

It is going to be busy out there, Gary. I think it will be flat out

all the way, isn't it? There is not much time to waste. You need to go

through the procedures. You need to make sure there is no leaks and the

car is OK because if you don't do that and you go out and the car

stops after two or three laps because of an oil leak, you lose the

whole session. It is better to lose five minutes than lose 45 and gain

five. Several cars already lining up down

there at the end of the pit lane and you can see it is still quite foggy.

It is still hazy as we look down from the camera position. Looking

from the camera from behind. There is plenty of visibility for the

drivers and as we know, there was a helicopter issue anyway that delayed

the start of the this session. So practise start area at the end of

the pits as well, that's why everybody stops and waits. It is a

tricky area for a practise start as you can see, some guys want to go

straight out and others are doing the practise start and it is not

that wide there, is it? They have the area on the right-hand side for

the practise starts so the main pit lane is open so I don't understand

why it is not there this time. You have to stop in the fast lane which

seems a bit stupid to me. Looking on board from Mark Webber. We have the

thermal imaging camera giving us the tire temperature in -- tyre

temperature in colours. The temperature dropping away as he goes

out on track. That inner line just showing how the tyre runs a certain

amount of kandor in a straight line? In the middle of the car, there are

two purple dots appearing where the front skids touch the ground. When

you are going around right-hand corner. We hear about the wear of

the front tyres that's the part that wears. It is the inside shoulder

being trailed around. YAz, it is -- yeah, it is difficult managing the

tyres with the set-up. It is interesting to hear that

Mercedes are saying that they are not going to be doing the

installation lap. They will go for several laps in one go. That's a

change in policy? It is. You know, this theory there should be no

problem. Sometimes we see a problem, but all the best for them. I am sure

they will get through it OK, but you need luck.

Fernando Alonso is sitting in his garage. Alonso usually isn't out at

the beginning, but it hurt them yesterday because they had a gearbox

problem on the Ferrari and by the time they discovered that, there was

never going to be a chance for him to do anymore lap ins Free Practise

1. As we heard, there is work to be done by the teams in terms of how

they look after the tyres and the soft tyre that Pirelli brought here

this weekend and there were concerns about the way that that tyre was

giving up as quickly as it was and chunking on some of the cars,

blistering on some of the cars. It is a combination of problems. It is

a the soft tyre. You could almost qaul -- call it a qualifying tyre.

It does a good lap time, but then it starts to grain because of the 10

and 12 right-hander. You get nor understeer, but with wheelspin, the

rear tyre starts Policering. There is a combination of events. Some

cars will handle it differently, but I don't think any car can take it

far. . Waing that 10 -- watching that 10

and 11 corner. Mark Webber puts a lot of strain on the left front. And

then he is into the flick and the last few corners. It is a blind brow

up at the top into turn 15 which the camera doesn't show. We were walking

the circuit this week and you get a much clearer idea of just how

difficult it is for the driver to spot his turn in point for that

corner and for turn three, they are blind brows on the approach? Yes,

blind brows and difficult to see because the track is so open. You

come over the top of the brow and there is 50 meters each side of the

track. We see the same thing into turn three, it is difficult to find

that apex. It is a plastic post sticking up to give them a clue

where it might be! That's useful! They are sitting so low in the cars.

Thanks for your comments that are coming in on Twitter. It is lovely

to know that so many of you in the UK are up bright and early to join

us for our coverage this morning. Sorry, we are late with the cars

coming out, but nothing we could do about that, of course, the

conditions defining that. One of the questions coming in here and I have

always got questions from Mark, why doesn't the FIA give a point in

qualifying, give the slower teams a reward for good qualifying teams. Do

you give a point for pole position? Sebastian Vettel has a few poles.

Just seeing Fernando Alonso here with his 1571 on the side of his

helmet, the amount of points he scored. You would be giving

Sebastian Vettel a few more points which is not what anybody wants! We

are riding with Alonso. He is on the harder of the two compounds. It has

the white on the side wall. When you see the yellow tyres, that's the

soft compound and he picks up a little bit of a toe as he comes down

the long, long straight. Top speeds that we saw yesterday, we saw the

Saubers were fast and the Torro Rosso and the Ferraris weren't quite

as far up. Things might have changed. They would have been

looking at gear ratios and looking a the compromise which you have got to

have here between straight line speed and descent cornering force. .

Let's watch him and watch him here at turn 11 here. This is a key

corner. Yes, it is quite an amazing corner.

It is a very long corner. You are taking speed out of the car all of

the way, and that is when you are leaning on that left front tyre. You

are still asking the car to turn. That is the critical corner. Some of

these fast flicks, left to right, they are actually quite nicely

spaced. Because the rear of the car wants to get away, so you are

semi-correct in your oversteer by the fact that there is another

corner coming up. It is a very interesting and is demanding track

from the driving point of view. You can really participate in making the

performance of the car stand out. Mark Webber has just done his first

run on the harder compound, and he has done a 1:27.1. Jennie Gow, I

think you are at Toro Rosso... Yes, Daniel Ricciardo had a shortened

practice session yesterday, after hitting one of the kerbs, damaging

the floor of the car. They have been working on that car, but they are

hoping that the work they have done will enable him to feel comfortable

in that car. Some of the kerbs are a little bit sharp around here. Yes,

RADIO: Gutierrez was struggling a little bit yesterday. He felt they

had not got the balance of the car particularly well, and he ended up

only 17th fastest, whereas team-mate Hulkenberg was a little bit further

up, at 14th. The times were not startling, but I think Hulkenberg

was relatively happy with the balance of his car.

GARY ANDERSON: If you look at Japan, they were able to do a much better

time in qualifying, compared with practice. It depends on whether you

want to show your true potential. Teams like Sauber want to hide it as

much as possible, so they can catch other teams by surprise. So, you do

play a little bit of politics. Felipe coming in to the 10-11

corner. It is incredible, the GeForce. You can see the on board

telemetry, a little bit sideways as he comes through 13 and 14. The G

forces are massive here. There is a massive raking G coming up to turn

four. A little bit of oversteer through the last corner. That lap

time is second fastest to Mark Webber at the moment. You can see he

was trying pretty hard. That is a pretty good lap from him. You will

see the time being even better with the softer tyres, obviously. Alonso

has just gone a fraction quicker than Massa there. But it might be a

different story when we get onto the softer tyre, as you say. Rosberg

going all four wheels over the kerb there, like we saw yesterday. In

qualifying, they will begin on an eye on anyone who gains an advantage

by doing that. The thing you have got to watch is these: YELLOW 's.

The others are OK to drive on. You either go to the right of that

yellow kerb or to the left of it, because if you hit it, it is what we

call a sausage kerb, it sticks up three or four inches, and it really

hurts the bottom of your car, and it really hurts your body as well,

because you are sitting on the bottom of the car. We are watching

Daniel Ricciardo now, as we heard in the press conference yesterday,

Force India are keeping an eye on what Sauber are up in the

Constructors' Championship, but Force India are catching. Lee spoke

to Nico Hulkenberg earlier on in the weekend, you will be able to see

that interview in our qualifying programme later on today. On board

with Lewis Hamilton. Let's see how he is getting on with the Mercedes.

He struggled with balance in the car at the beginning yesterday. He seems

to be a bit happier by the end of the day. But as we have heard,

perhaps he is not expecting any more than a second row horrifying

position. Perez has gone quickly in the first sector, but Hamilton is up

on Mark Webber's time so far. Still using the harder compound tyre. Down

to the final turn, up ahead of him is Kimi Raikkonen, in the Lotus. He

goes forth. Very close times at the moment, from Webber to Hamilton,

four places covered by a 10th of a second. Tom, you are at Red Bull...

A very interesting decision by Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel has just gone

out on the soft tyre. It is very early in the session for him to be

doing that. Given that you will be spending up to 90% of the race on

the prime tyre tomorrow, I think it tells us how happy Red Bull are with

the setup of the car on the prime, and also how important they see

qualifying this afternoon to be. Webber is also about to go out on

the soft tyre. I think they are indeed confident about the medium

tyre, but I think they need to do a bit of work on the softer tyre, to

fully understand where they sit with it.

GARY ANDERSON: Yes, you definitely need to do a bit of work. You have

to run both tyres in the race. Logic says that you might start on the

hard tyre, but there is maybe even as much as a second difference

between the two. You could end up very quickly struggling behind

people who are on the softer tyre. So, it is a big gamble. I would have

said Red Bull will try to qualify as quickly as possible with the softer

tyre, and try to make that tyre last five or six laps, to try to get

themselves away from some slower traffic, because everybody will be

pitting around the same time, five or six laps in. In previous races,

Vettel has gone for the harder tyre in qualifying, ended up qualifying

in ninth, and it did not quite work for him. He had his lowest actual

finish this year, in fourth place, when they tried qualifying on the

harder tyre. I wonder whether that will inform their decision-making. I

think they will look closely at what the ultimate performance of their

car is. If they all go out on softer tyres, and Vettel is eight tenths

quicker than anybody else, then there is a chance he could qualify

on the harder tyre. If they are just a 10th faster than the Mercedes,

then I do not think you can do it. They have to see what it can do now.

We have got a few times coming through. Alonso has gone quickest

to. But Vettel is on a quick lap on his softer tyres. We are about to

watch and see Sebastian Vettel set the pace in this session, the first

driver to go onto the softer tyre. Webber has also decided to put those

tyres on nice and early, he has just gone out of the pits. This is a 1:20

5.3, from Vettel. Yes, four tenths faster than yesterday. This would be

the tyre you will start in the race. How might they have changed the car

overnight guests yesterday, when they did do that longer run on the

softer tyre, we know that car creates massive amounts of

downforce, which is one of the advantages the car has, but the

price they pay is that it puts a lot more load through the tyres, so is

there any chance they might have backed off a little bit of the

downforce? I do not think they would back off the downforce. Yesterday

was the first rung on the softer tyre so the balance would not

necessarily be correct. Their problem yesterday was grading on the

front tyres, which will happen, you have just got to get through that.

They might have been trying to take some of the load out of the front

tyre, to get the car more balanced. You have got to live with it for the

qualifying lap, that it may be better on the longer run, which is

the balance they have got to get. You can even see the different

driving style between qualifying and the race, the way they will change

up much earlier through the gears when they are trying to look after

the tyres. Whereas in qualifying, they are revving it to the maximum.

The car is obviously heavier in the race, it goes slower, but there is

about 3% and 4% of lap time which disappears into the undergrowth,

from not running as much fuel, as well as the driver looking after the

tyres. You have to drive a lot more considerately during the race than

you do in qualifying. Webber's lap is a bit off what Vettel has done.

As we know, Vettel has an incredible record on this circuit. Webber has

been on the front row for both previous Grand Prix here. He is used

to starting up front, but he has only had the one podium finish on

this track. He goes second, but a full five tenths slower than his

team-mate, on the same tyres, and at the same time, virtually, on track.

Joining us from the pit wall is the team principal at Red Bull,

Christian Horner. Great to have you with us - that lap by Mark Webber,

about half a second slower... We can just see an incident with Hulkenberg

in the pits there. Christian Horner, both your guys going out very early

in this session on the softer tyres, is this because you want to get a

handle on how it is going to behave in the race tomorrow? Yes, we

elected to go a little bit early, and the drivers are working through

a programme at the moment. Both seem reasonably happy with the balance a

have got at the moment. I was speaking to Gary and I mentioned

that China was a bit like this, in terms of having a soft option tyre,

meaning everybody came in for an early stop, and you guys with

Sebastian on that occasion qualified on the harder tyre, and it ended up

being his worst result of the year, after qualifying ninth, so it did

not quite work, so will you be thinking on similar lines? On that

occasion, he got stuck behind Hulkenberg, if you remember, which

was probably the difference between fourth and second. Sometimes you do

not know how it is going to pan out. It is going to be fascinating to see

what strategies people choose. In some ways for you, it depends how

fast you can be on the harder tyre. Yes, the hard tyre is a good tyre

around here, it seems to go on for ever and ever, whereas the soft

seems to be the opposite. That brings into play some interesting

strategic questions. It is the same for everyone at the end of the day.

GARY ANDERSON: You see the soft tyre as being a safety risk, the

possibility of tyres exploding or anything like that? Hopefully it is

just a performance issue. The tyre is degrading extremely quickly, and

that is always a concern, when you see these slow motion pictures, with

bits falling off the tyres. Hopefully it will not be a safety

issue. We have just seen Max Chilton having a spin. Finally, Christian, I

know you have got to get back to work, but just a quick word on the

mood in the camp, I know your target is to win this race, but just tell

me about the mood in the team this weekend there is a real focus on

this event. Everybody is going about their business as they would do any

other weekend. Do you try to drill that into them, that this is a

completely normal weekend? We talk about it a little bit, but they have

been here before, they know how it works. We just take it one race at a

time and do the very best we can to get the best out of this Indian

Grand Prix. Thank you very so, Sebastian Vettel is fastest in this

session, Webber second, and Massa has also gone out on the softer

tyre. But he is quite a long way off, six tenths of a second away

from Mark Webber's time. As we might have expected, the Ferrari, not on

the pace of the Red Bull. This was Alonso, on the edge, coming into the

pits. He was definitely taking it to the limit through this dusty and

dirty section of the pit lane. The top three have all gone with the

soft tyre now. There is 1.1 seconds difference between Vettel and Massa.

In reality, if that is the closest anybody else can get, then he will

be able to use the hard tyre. Jennie Gow, I believe you have found out

about what happened here with Hulkenberg...

He managed to clip one of the medicanics. He looked at him with

his amazing facial hair. He is OK. He smiled at me. The good news is he

got up and painfully walked away to the back of the garage where he is

receiving ice and treatment so he should be OK.

Well, it is always a worry, we have seen incidents several times this

year and most notably in Germany where a cameraman got hit by a

wheel. Jennie, keep your feet back because I would hate to see that

toenail polish get damaged! This session is going so quickly

because of its late start and because it has been shortened.

Felipe Massa is on a better lap again. So he has gone for a second

flying lap on the soft tyre. Looking at Rosberg he is on the harder of

the tyres. Everyone else apart from the two Red Bulls and Felipe Massa's

Ferrari are running around on the harder compound tyre. 1.31 from Nico

Rosberg. Tom, you are at Red Bull. I am, I am at the front of Sebastian

Vettel's car where he has come in after that quick short run earlier.

He is keeping the same soft tyres on and they just put fuel in the car.

Nigel Hope has been putting fuel in the car and he is about to go out

again. It is as Gary Anderson called it earlier. We saw images there,

Gary, Massa was going around the long right-hander. There was marking

up. Is that anything to worry about that? No. It is mainly rubber that's

picking up because it is dragged around here a lot. If he goes into a

left-hand corner it will clean up very quickly. Just to explain there

Tom, it is 0.8 litre per second. So you could have told us how many

litres of fuel he put in. Stop watch at the ready, Tom next time! We are

watching Jean-Eric Vergne. He is 14th at the moment. It is a bit on

balance because some have run the soft tyre. Just the top three have

run the soft tyre. We have Vettel, Massa, Webber. Raikkonen is fastest

and Romain Grosjean and both Lotuses looking good in terms of pace.

Alonso two tenths slower than Grosjean and Button. Gutierrez

running very wide. He has been looking ragged all weekend here.

Sods Button is -- so Button is seventh and Hulkenberg is eighth.

And Maldonado has almost the same lap time. Hamilton is only 11th. He

hit a sausage kerb that you were talking about earlier and he got

some air there. He has got some air for sure.

TEAM RADIO: OK. My back side hurtsz! -- hurts! It is not a good thing to

do. The front of the car is, it is not weak, but hitting that like that

with that acceleration. These cars weigh 640 plus fuel, 660

kilogrammes. It does not do the carbon-fibre any good.

Gutierrez' tricky weekend continues. He has been showing good maturity

and has been able to come back and do good qualifying performances.

Sebastian Vettel put fuel in the car as Tom told us. He is going out to

put a sequence of laps together just to see how the tyre behaviours. --

behaves. We will try and bring that to you. The car now will be probably

120 kilogrammes heavier than what it was when he did the qualifying lap.

That puts the little bit extra into the car. And you have to slow down

because of the fuel. We will try and watch for this graining happening

and see how he gets through it. Receipt vet's time from -- Vettel's

time from earlier. He will be in the one minute 30s. That's the sort of

times they were doing yesterday and that's what we would expect to see

today. What was interesting, once they had done their quick

performance lap yesterday, when they went back out and had fuel in the

car, the tyre was slower than the harder tyre was. Yes, I mean, almost

immediately this graining starts which creates more and more

understeer. It will be interesting to see how his laps progress.

Yesterday they changed the tyres after three laps.

TEAM RADIO: We have run the prime twice so we don't know what the drop

is like. Yes, a feedback for Lewis Hamilton

there are. He is down in 11th place. Rosberg is 12th. Rosberg is on a

better lap at the moment. And there is that long, right-hander. You can

almost hear the more longer pause on the throttle that time. Very

different to when he was on his semi qualifying lap. I thought you were

going to say you could hear the left front tyre squealing! You can see

the car looks more ponderous when it has fuel on board. 1.38. That

doesn't tell us how quick he will be in the race. What's the next lap?

Will it be a 1.31.7 or will he start to lose performance and be in the

1.32s? At the moment that's 6.5 seconds slower than his fastest lap.

That indicates on his fastest lap there was 30 kilogrammes of fuel in

the car. There is more time to come. That 25.3 is not the ultimate for

sure. Last year, 1.252 was his pole

position from last year. In practise and as you say, are he probably had

fuel in the car as well. Yes, that time pole position would be a 23.5,

something -- 25.2 5 something like that.

We are looking inside the McLaren pit. Button is eighth. Perez is in

tenth position and talking of McLaren, Tom is outside the garage.

I am, Ben. I am stood at the front of Sergio Perez's car. There is a

lot of set-up changes. They were talking yesterday about trying a

radical set-up and Perez just had the roll bars changed. There is a

lot of work and a lot of experimenting going on on his car in

particular. OK. We will keep an eye on that.

Mark Webber has gone out on the softer tyre to do a few laps

together. Vettel crossed the line again and done a 1.316. That's

better. It shows they are holding the tyres together better than

yesterday. Yeah... TEAM RADIO: Mid-32s is a good

target. At the moment, he is in the 31s. I

would expect them to be doing mid to low 32s. That was a respectable time

when you look at what other people could do yesterday on the soft

tyres. He maybe abusing them too much. The it cars should go a tenth

of a second faster per lap if using the fuel load if the tyres don't

deteriorate. So what we are saying really Gary,

when the drivers are on the softer tyre, they are going to have to

focus on careful driving, looking after the tyre, but when they bolt

the other tyre on, they are just going to be able to go for it? Yes.

You are at the moment trying to make the tyre last as long as possible.

The regulations are top ten have to start on the tyre they qualify on

and from there backwards, they can start on anything. The first lap,

first flying lap for Mark Webber on the soft tyre. Quicker than

Sebastian Vettel's first lap. Does that mean he will take more out of

the tyre? Does that mean he will get less laps? Nicholas Hamilton on the

right-hand side, Lewis' brother. Interestingly, a few more cars

coming out on the soft tyre including Lotus and Lotus saying

their drivers are happy with the way things are going this morning. Kimi

is happier with the balance if had his car. Grosjean is reporting a

touch of understeer, but Kimi was struggling with the balance of his

car, we saw a few mistakes from him yesterday. He has gone out and he is

on a lap at the moment. He is on a lap at the moment. At the

end of it, he won't be happy. That's two tenths improvement from the

tyre. Vettel did a 32.6. They told him to do mid-32s and what does he

do? That's accurate. It is amazing when a driver can do that. We are

talking about getting a Formula One car around over three miles of track

and yet, through his judgement and the way he is driving the car, he

can deliver a lap time to virtually the tenth of a second he has been

asked to 6789. He has been asked to, he does. So many drivers don't. Not

that we they can't do it, they think they see more than the engineer who

is looking at the performance of the 21 other cars. It is a fine line

between taking a the thing into your own hands or listening to your team.

Alonso is faster than Raikkonen by half a second, but he is eight

tenths slower than Vettel. As the session continues, more rubber is

going down. The more drivers go out and do a simulated qualifying lap,

the faster the track gets. Vettel's time from earlier on looks even more

astonishing. Paul di Resta goes sixth fastest.

Now what's going on at McLaren, Tom? Jenson Button has just gone out on

the harder of the two compound tyres. Does that give us a little

bit of an indication as to his strategy in qualifying? Yes, I would

think so. At the end of the day, if he can qualify reasonably, they are

looking at qualifying ninth or tenth if they get into Q3. So if they get

into Q3, they have got to make the decision. Can they be better than

foInt or tenth on the soft tyre? So they are making sure they have done

their homework correct live. There is seven minutes -- correctly. There

is seven minutes to go. Let's see what happens.

Let's run through the times. Vettel is fastest. Webber is second.

Hulkenberg fourth. Felipe Massa is fifth and Paul di Resta, who is 4.1

seconds off the time Vettel has done. Sutil eighth and Grosjean

ninth and Grosjean on his soft tyre. We might see improvement. Tenth for

Rosberg. 11th for Button. He is on the harder tyre. Perez 12th and

Maldonado 13th. We are watching Maldonado. He is on the soft tyre

and Hamilton is 14th and Jean-Eric Vergne ahead of Valtteri Bottas and

Charles Pic is next and the Marussia are off, but I am not sure we have

seen everybody put their lap in yet and we will keep an eye on that as

Maldonado goes with four wheels off the track. You will lose the lap

time. If that's your fastest lap, it disappears and if that's your

fastest lap on that soft Fryer, you have wasted everything. This circuit

is so open and blind that it is difficult to gauge the speed that

you go into a corner. It is easy to be going too quick everywhere

because there is no reference from crash barriers.

It sucks you in, doesn't it? It sucks you in. We are just seeing

Grosjean. I said he would improve, well he has improved. He is slower

than Hulkenberg. Slower than than Alonso. Maybe Lotus are

experimenting a bit. We have seen a replay of Maldonado's off. He

continued on. There is a fine line. Maldonado over stepping it there. We

were talking about the race he won in Spain last year. It seems a long

time ago now. What a brilliant drive it was. We just haven't seen that

much of that kind of performance from him since then? It is like a

light switch wept off. He did that -- went off. He did that drive. He

battled with Alonso, but suddenly, you know, it has gone. It

disappeared somewhere and it don't think -- I don't think anyone has

know where it has gone from. He has been frustrated this year. He

the hasn't necessarily controlled that frustration as well as you need

as a top driver. All you can do is knuckle down and get on with it and

yet he does seem to overstep the mark? He is up in ninth position,

but that lap wouldn't count in qualifying. You cannot make that

mistake. You have to respect and interesting looking at both Lotuses

they lost time in the last section of the track. Nico Hulkenberg and

Felipe Massa were able to do a second lap and the first part of the

lap was better on the second lap than on the first lap. Those two

cars are looking after the tyres well. So very, very difficult to

make sure that you look after the tyre well enough for a full lap in

qualifying. How is Vettel looking after his

tyres? He has done eight laps and 1.38.8 was his last lap? They are

past their sell-by date. Mark Webber has been in the pits. I don't know

what tyre he is going back out on, but he should be going back out on

the medium tyre. He was told to go slower. Now he is

into the 34s. So they are dropping away. So, you know, now is the time

you need to be changing them for sure.

RADIO: Both rear tyres look pretty damaged. That is interesting, he is

talking about the rear tyres, obviously looking in his mirrors and

seeing a bit of marking up on the tyres of his car. Hulkenberg

certainly reporting back to the pits.

tyres of his car. Hulkenberg certainly reporting back to He

always sounds very calm and collected. Let's just have a look at

Vettel. Did he go all four wheels? Not quite. The left front tyre looks

OK for him. It is that white line, between the black part of the track

and the red and white kerb, if that line is seen inside of the tyres, as

such, that is what you get done for. That's just looking back at the

replay, he just used the inside kerb a little bit, but did not launch

himself, unlike Gutierrez earlier on. The car rides that beautifully

well. It does. You can see his right rear tyre, it is looking a little

bit tatty, shall we say. rear tyre, it is looking a little

bit tatty, shall So, we have only got a few moments left in this final

practice session, before we get into qualifying. Do those times mean they

are going to be able to put in a reasonable first tint on this softer

tyre, if they decide to qualify on it? If the graining does start, you

have basically... Oh, Hamilton not very happy with Grosjean, he felt

that he was in his way. Grosjean was not going quickly, whereas Lewis

Hamilton was, and suddenly, he had to take to the extra bit of track on

the outskirts. Hamilton not happy about it. Tom is down at Red Bull.

An interesting strategy for Red Bull and Mark Webber, given that he is

half a second off his team-mate. He came through the pit lane on two

consecutive laps, and then came and stopped back in the garage.

Effectively, the last three laps on this session he ruined, going

through the pit lane. Just looking back at what happened, Grosjean had

gone wide. And then presumably, Hamilton went past.

RADIO: I got held up on my lap, Grosjean went off.

GARY ANDERSON: Just to go back to what Tom said, about Mark Webber

going through the pits, as we saw with Fernando Alonso, the pit entry

and the pit except is part of the race track, and if you are going to

be pitting early, you have got to do it as quick as you do on the

racetrack. You do need a bit of practice on that as well, to make

sure you do not lose a second. Our own David Coulthard did that way

back in Adelaide, in his first Grand Prix in Australia, smacking the pit

wall. I am sure he will be delighted that you have reminded everybody

about that. wall. I am sure he will be delighted

that you Jenson Button has gone back up into the top ten with that lap.

But a long way off the pace. He is over a second off the pace which

Sebastian Vettel set earlier on in this session. Just a few seconds

left before the chequered flag comes out. I think just about everybody

will have completed their soft tyre run. What about Perez? He has got a

lap in already, down in 16th place. He is obviously hoping to get a

clear that being on the final lap. Nico Hulkenberg just beating the

chequered flag, so he gets one more lap. So, the chequered flag comes

out on this shortened final practice session here in India, before we get

ready for qualifying. And there is no change at the tub, in terms of

Red Bull dominating every session so far. That means that Vettel has

topped every single session so far this year, as well as every single

practice session last year. He qualified in front. The only session

he was not fastest in last year was the first qualifying session, when

the top teams often do not use the top tyre. Vettel finishes off his

long run. He actually got down into the 1.33s just at the end there. The

right front has ticked up hugely. Tyres do look as though they have

done some work. It is not a nice thing to look at if you are the

driver, watching your tyres. Definitely. So, Fernando Alonso just

finishing off his lap. He has ended up third fastest, but it is quite a

big gap between himself and the Red Bulls. You do wonder what Lotus were

up to, they did not seem to show their hand. I think they have got a

faster car than they have shown. What are we learning from the

Ferrari, Gary? I think the front tyres and rear tyres are both on the

limit. Some of that is just graining, which will clear up. But

those are being used like a qualifying tyre. You can see the

right front on Massa's car, and you can see a bit of under steer.

right front on Massa's car, and you can Coming into the final corner,

the right front taking the load. He ran just a little bit wide. But no

drama. Some more, great slow motion action. This is Sebastian Vettel's

car. The little inside shoulder, picking up the rubber. The left

front is the one which actually determines the lap time. So, the

final session of practice has come to an end, and Red Bull just a

fraction of last year's pole position time for Sebastian Vettel.

Paul di Resta will be encouraged, with the seventh. I do think that

Mercedes perhaps have not shown quite what they are capable of. We

will see in qualifying. Raikkonen just outside the top ten, but

qualifying has been a bugbear for Kimi in recent races. Pastor

Maldonado, 12th fastest, in the Williams.

Kimi in recent races. Pastor Maldonado, 12th fastest, in the Then

we have Perez, who perhaps did not get a fully representative lap in.

Amongst the young teams, Charles Pic, the fastest, quicker than the

Sauber of Gutierrez, who again has been struggling here. It looks as

though Caterham have gained a little bit over Marussia overnight. Those

two teams seem to be more evenly balanced yesterday, but right now,

it seems as though Caterham have got the slight advantage. Show, so, a

short break now as we get ready for qualifying, but it is difficult to

bet against Vettel. It is. Nico Hulkenberg once again needs a pat on

the back. Great effort from Sauber, and from Nico. Yes, Nico, continuing

negotiations for where he will be driving next year. Hopefully there

will be some more news on that soon. He has got himself up into fourth

place provisionally. Hamilton, I am sure, we have not seen the best from

him yet. Qualifying still very much to look forward to later on today.

So, visibility problems meant that the session was delayed by 20

minutes. The teams only had 40 minutes to refine their cars for the

all-important qualifying session, a session which we will be bringing to

you in less than an hour on BBC One. If you cannot make that, there is a

rerun at one o'clock. So, Sebastian Vettel is determined for a hat-trick

of pole positions. We will see you soon.