After a miserable Friday the rains lifted at Spa on Saturday morning and the mood in F1 picked up with Fernando Alonso setting the pace in FP3, beating Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus by a tenth of a second. The two Saubers of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi and Jenson Button’s McLaren. Felipe Massa was next in the second Ferrari, ahead of Mark Webber’s Red Bull, the Australian now facing a five-place grid penalty because of a gearbox change. Romain Grosjean next, followed by Sebastian Vettel and Paul di Resta, with Pastor Maldonado, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg in hot pursuit. Jean-Eric Vergne was next, beating his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and then Bruno Senna. Heikki Kovalainen was in his inevitable 18th ahead of Charles Pic and Timo Glock and Vitaly Petrov in the second Caterham. The two HRTs were next with Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan while Nico Rosberg brought up the rear because of a gearbox problem.
