Practice 3 Report - Rain wipes out final practice at Suzuka

The third session of free practice for the Japanese Grand Prix was washed out by heavy rain, prompting speculation about whether qualifying can go ahead as scheduled if conditions do not improve.

The only driver to run in anger was Jaime Alguersuari, who lapped in 1m55.902s and also had a spin. Timo Glock was 11.5s slower after a few exploratory laps in a twitchy Virgin chassis. Sebastian Buemi and Lewis Hamilton also ventured out as the rest of the field did just an initial installation lap.

With heavy rain forecast for the whole of Saturday in the Suzuka region, the race faces the very real possibility of qualifying having to be postponed. The same thing happened at Suzuka in 2004, when a typhoon wiped out the Saturday and qualifying was run on race morning.