The third and final session was still considered to be wet, but a dry racing line had appeared and early times in the session were immediately three seconds quicker than in the second Friday session. Ferrari's dominant streak ended with championship leader Mark Webber fastest before a torrential downpour struck in the second half of the session. Lewis Hamilton was second, with Sebastian Vettel third; Vettel also experienced an unknown mechanical failure and ground to a halt in pit lane. After dominating the Friday practice sessions, Alonso was sixth after an encounter with Jarno Trulli, once again the fastest of the newcomers half a second ahead of Bruno Senna. The first session was red-flagged almost immediately, with Renault's Vitaly Petrov spinning off the circuit and into the slippery wet grass meaning the Russian failed to set a lap time and would start the race from the very back of the grid. As was the case in Malaysia, the wet qualifying interrupted the natural order of the grid. Lucas di Grassi set a time of almost two minutes and twenty seconds before returning to pit and staying there, but team mate Timo Glock and Lotus rival Heikki Kovalainen both advanced through to the second period. This came at the expense of both the BMW Sauber drivers, with Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa both slipping off the circuit in the changing conditions. They were separated by the Hispania drivers, meaning the first seven drivers eliminated were Trulli, Kobayashi, Senna, Yamamoto, de la Rosa, di Grassi and Petrov. Michael Schumacher narrowly avoided claiming the 24th and last position – after his aggressive driving penalty from Hungary had been applied – by graduating to the second session at the fall of the first chequered flag. The conditions dramatically improved ahead of the second session with lap times improving by ten seconds almost immediately. The wet conditions played into the hands of Kovalainen and Glock, with the two drivers trading blows with Vitantonio Liuzzi before the circuit dried out and the gap between Lotus, Virgin and the established teams opened itself up. Kovalainen finished 16th and Glock 17th, though a glut of penalties – including one for Glock who was deemed to have blocked Hispania's Sakon Yamamoto – meant that Kovalainen would start the race thirteenth on the grid. Elsewhere, Michael Schumacher narrowly missed the cut for the final session and qualified eleventh, his retroactive penalty meaning he would start the race in 21st; the German was unconcerned following weather forecasts that predicted rain.