Hamilton on top again in final practice

Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton topped the times again in today's third and final free practice session ahead of tomorrow's German Grand Prix.

The 24-year-old Englishman, driving a Mercedes-Benz powered McLaren, clocked a best time of one minute and 31.121 seconds to outpace his nearest rival, two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Renault, by two-tenths of a second.

Brazilian Felipe Massa of Ferrari was third fastest ahead of local hero German Sebastian Vettel (22) and his Red Bull teammate Australian Mark Webber. Finn Kimi Raikkonen, in the second Ferrari, was sixth.

The two Brawn GP cars of championship leading Briton Jenson Button and his teammate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello were content to work on final settings ahead of today's qualifying session and clocked the 11th and 13th best times respectively.

All this gave the time-sheets a slightly unrealistic order particularly as Hamilton's McLaren teammate Finn Heikki Kovalainen was a full 1.6 seconds slower than his partner and wound up 16th.

That disparity confirmed that Hamilton was running with a light fuel load in order to clock fast laps and enthuse the German crowd packed into the circuit in the Eifel mountains to support Mercedes-Benz.

And while Hamilton enjoyed his second session on top, it was bad news for BMW Sauber - also trying to impress their home crowd - as the Munich-badged team struggled badly.

Pole Robert Kubica ended up as the slowest driver in 20th place and a team source admitted: "There are no excuses. We are just slow, far too slow."

The afternoon qualifying is likely to see a return to this season's normal order with Button competing with Vettel for pole position.

Button leads the title race with 64 points ahead of his team-mate Barrichello on 41. Vettel, winner of last month's British Grand Prix and widely regarded as the rising star in F1 and a potential German successor to Michael Schumacher, is third on 39 points with Webber fourth on 35.5.

In the constructors championship, Brawn have 105 points and Red Bull 74.5.

The final practice session was run in cool and cloudy conditions as the miserable weather persisted and the track temperature did not rise above 20 degrees Celsius - a factor that suggests Red Bull may have the advantage.

Brawn's car performs far more favourably in warm and sunny conditions.