Silver polish

Nico Rosberg set the pace on saturday morning in Monaco with a lap that was just faster than Felipe Massa’s best for Ferrari. But the times once again need to be taken with a pinch of salt as the final minutes of the session were lost after Pastor Maldonado tagged the barriers in Casino Square and knocked a wheel off his Williams, bringing out red flags. Sebastian Vettel was third, despite a barrier tap at one point, while Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, ahead of Romain Grosjean, the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes.

Sergio Perez and Mark Webber completed the top 10, although the Australian was only fractionally ahead of the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne and Kimi Raikkonen, who is still recovering from the time he lost on Thursday morning. Kamui Kobayashi was next ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg and Bruno Senna.

Heikki Kovalainen was next while Paul di Resta was lower than expected after losing control under braking at the chicane and knocking off his nose against the barriers. Vitaly Petrov was next, ahead of Timo Glock, Maldonado, Charles Pic, Narain Karthikeyan and Pedro de la Rosa.