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Fernando Alonso topped the times in the final practice session of the season, but Lewis Hamilton and McLaren will take comfort from having closed up to and even surpassed the Ferraris, putting them back in contention for pole position later today.

After the lock ups and pacelessness of yesterday, the Mercedes powered duo hit the front after 20 minutes, with Kovalainen surpassing the then-quickest time of Kimi Raikkonen, before Hamilton edged his team mate out of top spot with a 1:12.278.

Even as Hamilton crossed the line, Massa was tearing round on a quick lap of his own, but like yesterday, though he had the edge in the long technical middle section, Massa lost precious tenths to the McLaren in the first and final sectors, and could only go second, splitting Hamilton and Kovalainen.

The order remained much the same for the rest of the session, until the final few minutes when teams switched to the option tyres. Firstly Mark Webber appeared in third place, and then the McLarens reasserted themselves at the top, Kovalainen lowering the benchmark to a 1:12.225 before Hamilton lowered it even further to a 1:12.212. Massa tried again to surpass the McLarens, but was again let down in the final sector and could only go 3rd.

Then, along came Alonso. He had been languishing down in 17th place, much like FP2 yesterday, but the late switch to the striped tyre (and a possible fiddle around with his fuel load) saw him leap straight up to P1 at the end of the session, ahead of Hamilton, Kovalainen and Massa.

Toro Rosso had a strong session, with Sebastian Vettel ending 5th and Sebastien Bourdais 7th, sandwiching the BMW of Nick Heidfeld, who also benefited from a late option tyre run. Mark Webber slipped to 8th at the end, and Nelson Piquet and Jarno Trulli rounded out the top ten. Nico Rosberg also enjoyed a brief leap up the standings, initially grabbing 6th before falling back to 11th, while Kimi Raikkonen was oddly unable to improve in the closing stages and he ended up down in 12th.

Elsewhere, Robert Kubica had a torpid run to 14th, David Coulthard's final ever practice session netted him 16th, and the Hondas joined the Force Indias right at the back.

So with two session toppers under his belt and qualifying some moments away, will Fernando Alonso be able to crash the championship party in that session as well?