Britons on top again

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton produced another best-of-British performance in final practice for Sunday's inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Last year's world champion Hamilton narrowly had the upper hand on Friday over the man who has this season deposed him from his throne. In first practice, Hamilton was quickest, edging out Button by just 0.096secs, then in the second session, when they were again poised to finish one and two, Hamilton's McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen produced a hot lap to relegate them to second and third fastest.

In Saturday's hour-long run ahead of qualifying, the British duo again dominated - and they could barely have been closer as Button held a two-thousandths-of-a-second advantage.

In his Brawn GP, the 29-year-old produced the fastest lap of the weekend so far for the 5.55km circuit of one minute 40.625secs.

Behind the front-running duo was Rubens Barrichello, who still has designs on finishing second to his team-mate Button in the championship as he trails Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel by two points.

The Brazilian, almost certainly in his last race for Brawn, was 0.282secs down on Button, with Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi in close attendance, a further 0.027secs adrift.

It was a session of stark contrasts for Toro Rosso, though, as Buemi's team-mate Jaime Alguersuari sat out the entire 60 minutes due to a hydraulic issue with his car.

Behind Buemi was BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld and Kovalainen, with Toyota's Jarno Trulli seventh, the trio all just over six-tenths-of-a-second down.

The second BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica was eighth, with Adrian Sutil in his Force India ninth and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen 10th. Vettel was down in 11th.