That was until the final seconds when Pedro de la Rosa lost control of his Sauber coming out of the first chicane, with the rear end slamming into the wall at turn four.

Given De la Rosa stepped back in the car only yesterday as replacement for the unwell Sergio Perez after being given permission for the drive by McLaren, his shunt was hardly good timing with qualifying looming.

Moments prior to that, with Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari and Nico Rosberg for Mercedes leading the way, Vettel showed them who is boss with one of the quickest laps seen at this track.

The race lap record belongs to Rubens Barrichello in 2004 when he was with Ferrari, with the Brazilian posting a 1:13.622.

Vettel, however, set a time of 1:13.381, beating Alonso by almost a third of a second, and suggesting yet another pole is on the cards at a circuit supposedly not suited to the Red Bull.

Rosberg finished just over half a second adrift in third ahead of the Felipe Massa in his Ferrari, followed by the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

On a track where the British pair scored a one-two last season, with Hamilton leading the way, they appear off the pace on this occasion as they both trailed by a second.

Late on, Hamilton posted his best three sectors, but still found himself 1.088secs off the pace, just ahead of Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was eighth, followed by the Force Indias, however, on this occasion it was Adrian Sutil narrowly ahead of Paul di Resta, but with the team at least continuing their strong showing.

De la Rosa finished 17th for his troubles, just half a second and two places behind team-mate Kobayashi, but leaving mechanics with a job on their hands to repair the car ahead of qualifying.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber failed to take to the track at all due to an issue, and not for the first time this season, with the battery for the car’s KERS power-boost system, leaving him short of running.