Ahead of today's all important qualifying session, the air temperature is 25 degrees C, while the track temperature is 39 degrees. Although it is bright there is still a lot of cloud, it is also quite windy.

Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets this morning, however, the session wasn't without its problems for the Austrian team. Mark Webber, why suffered an engine failure in yesterday's second session, lost valuable time this morning as a result of a throttle problem. When he did get out again he appeared to have more than his fair share of handling issues running wide at Turn 8 on a couple of occasions.

With McLaren having topped the timesheets in yesterday's sessions, it was widely considered that Red Bull was simply biding its time. Now, despite the team's obvious pace, there is speculation that the Austrian might not be quite as (all round) strong as first suspected and that the team's well known reliability issues to could come back to haunt it.

Nico Rosberg popped in a late stunner this morning to go second, but for much of the weekend thus far he has looked less than impressive and a distinct second fiddle to his illustrious teammate. Will Turkey be where the German finally gets his championship back on track after a couple of off-colour races?

While the McLarens looked good yesterday they were not as impressive this morning, particularly when Hamilton got it all wrong at Turn 8 this morning, spinning 360 degrees and puncturing both his rear tyres in the process.

Alonso continues to dominate at Ferrari, the Italian team contesting its 800th Formula One World Championship Grand Prix this weekend. Though Felipe Massa finished tenth, the Brazilian appears a shadow of the man who took three back to back wins here not so long ago.

Renault continues to impress, particularly in terms of Robert Kubica. That said, running with the old rear wing yesterday, Vitaly Petrov gave his polish teammate a run for his money, so perhaps now that he too has the new wing we might see him add some more points to his tally this weekend. That's assuming there are no more screw ups in the forthcoming session.

Both Saubers have been looking good this weekend, but we've seen it all before and cannot help but feel that the Swiss outfit's dreadful reliability will be an issue once again.

Having crashed yesterday and suffered a technical problem this morning, Force India are looking just a little off colour, which plays straight into the hands of Toro Rosso who are looking much stronger this weekend.

Williams continues to disappoint, as the Grove team appears to fall back into the clutches of Lotus. Then again, according to what we are hearing the Malaysian team has its own problems. All will probably become clear over the summer.

It's business as usual for Virgin and Hispania, the two newbies continuing to struggle and clearly suffering from the restrictions on testing.

We expect Red Bull to take pole, most probably courtesy of Vettel, however, once again one has to wonder about the team's reliability.

Tyre options are hard (prime) and soft (option) with the softer compound only really good for one fast lap.