Morning everyone, and welcome to the third and final practice session for the Australian Grand Prix. It's dry and overcast in Melbourne, similar conditions to those faced yesterday.

So, the final hour for the drivers to really get to understand the Pirelli tyres ahead of qualifying at 17:00 local time (06:00 GMT). Will McLaren pick up where they left off yesterday? Or will Red Bull respond?

The session is underway, and our first man out on to the track is Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus.

Kovalainen will be looking to improve on what was a disappointing day for Lotus yesterday, with Mike Gascoyne saying they will be able to find more pace today. Adrian Sutil and Michael Schumacher join him.

We've just seen shots inside the HRT garage as they work on Narain Karthikeyan's car. He's in his race suit but will he get out on track today?

Almost all the drivers have completed an installation lap to make sure no gremlins have crept into the cars over night. Just Rosberg and HRTs haven't been out.

HRT update: Liuzzi's car is ready... Just waiting to see it on track.

Rosberg is now with us so we're just waiting on the engines to fire up at the far end of the pit lane at HRT.

Rosberg drives the length of the pit lane without stopping and completes a practice start at the end. He then very nearly runs wide into the first corner.

Meanwhile, Schumacher has been told to get out of the sister Mercedes and the seven-time German shjakes his head as the engine cover comes off.

Remember this session is just an hour long and we'll see drivers complete a few laps on hard tyres before heading out on softs for a qualifying-style run.

Air temperature is 16C, track temperature is 22C so were still not seeing the kind of temperatures Pirelli had hoped. Nonetheless, the teams are happy with how the tyres performed yesterday and it looks likely we'll see three pit stops on Sunday.

Glock is starting a flying lap. Virgin are a little concerned they might miss the qualifying cut later on, so they need to find some pace in this session.

Liuzzi has left the pits.... And stopped at turn four. Not good whatsoever. That's the end of his session, so he won't complete a full lap before qualifying.

Meanwhile, d'Ambrosio is hustling the Virgin across the grass after a little mistake.

Liuzzi says his gearbox went into a "forced neutral" and he lost drive. Possibly a hydraulic or electronic issue. Sadly, that's what happens if you don't test a car before the race.

Button locks up into turn three and makes a mess of his right front tyre before bouncing into the gravel pit. No damage to the car but the tyre has a nasty flatspot.

Meanwhile, Perez is setting the pace in the Sauber with a 1:28.385.

Vettel has set his first fast lap of the day with a 1:27.337. The time was set on hard tyres.

Maldonado has beached his car in turn six, He just lost the rear end under braking, possibly touching the grass on corner entry. The car isn't damaged, but that will be costly for set-up time.

A bit of the front wing has just fallen off Heidfeld's Renault as he rode the kerb on the exit of the final corner. That also happened on Friday on the exit of turn two.

Rosberg goes second fastest with a 1:27.493. But the lap was set with the yellow flags at turn six, so maube he can better it now that Maldonado's car has been cleared.

Alonso was on a quick lap but then decided to back off as he came across traffic.

Massa's Ferrari looks unbalanced. The car understeers in and then overtseers out of corners. It could just be a tyre warm-up problem.

Sutil's KERS has failed, but Force India tells him to stay out on track. And now the KERS is back on the Force India, so just a momentary glitch.

Webber clocks the fastest time roughly five laps into his hard tyre run. He sets a 1:26.993.

Sutil is now working hard at the steering wheel again. Getting the KERS and the rear wing working.

Webber is now going even quicker. Those hard tyres seem to be holding up quite consistently over a long run.

Button goes fastest on soft tyres with 1:25.961. Webber then clocks a hard-tyre lap just 0.198 off.

Barrichello's session is over with a gearbox oil leak. So both Williams are out of the session with 20 minutes remaining.

Perez is crawling back to the pits, but should just make it back. It looks as though he's lost drive.

Vettel is on a quick lap, two tenths up on Button through the first sector... he's on hard tyres and loses a bit of time in sector two... he sets the quickest time by a full 0.6s seconds with a 1:25.327. That was probably a low-fuel lap on the hard tyres, simulating his Q1 run or maybe even a Q3 run if Red Bull don't want to start the race on the softs.

Buemi is fourth fastest on soft tyres, but still 1.681 seconds off Vettel on hards.

Alonso is now on the soft tyres, can he beat Vettel? Probably not judging by the first sector. He finishes the lap a second off, but his best time today is 0.8s off Vettel and was good enough for third place.

Hamilton pops up into third place on soft tyres with a time 0.710 off Vettel.

Massa locks up into turn one and still looks uncomfortable in that car.

Massa is sliding his car out of corners as well and so far has only set the seventh fastest time.

Karthikeyan is on track. It's purely an installation lap and he gets in the way of Kovalainen's Lotus.

Five minutes remaining and Karthikeyan is back in the pits.

Webber is on a fast lap on soft tyres - this could be a true indication of Red Bull's pace. He lost a bit of time in the final sector. He was just 0.037 off Vettel.

Kathikeyan is back on track again.

Vettel is about to set a very quick lap.

Vettel goes 0.857 faster than anyone on his first soft tyre lap. Brilliant lap.

Hamilton is third fastest and over a second off.

Button is on his best lap yet and 0.3 off Vettel in sector two. But loses 0.7 in the final sector and ends up fourth fastest.

Vettel is on another quick lap as Karthikeyan completes a lap 17 seconds off the pace.

Petrov runs wide on one last push and loses a but of front wing.

Webber is back in the garage and has been confronted by a 0,857 deficit to his team-mate on the timing screens

So Vettel and Red Bull comfortably lead the way ahead of qualifying. It looks like they still have the fastest car over one lap. But qualifying is where it matters, so we'll have to wait and see if they can repeat it.

Make sure you join us for qualifying in two hours time.