Webber nicks top spot

With the track drying following a rain shower prior to the start, many teams opted to keep their drivers in the garage rather than risk their machines on the tight and twisty course.

Indeed following early installation runs on a surface which held areas of standing water, the Red Bulls and McLarens remained out of sight until the final quarter of an hour.

By contrast Schumacher spent large swathes of the session out on track in his Mercedes, trading P1 blows with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi after Virgin's Timo Glock and Toro Rosso's Jamie Alguersuari had led the way in the opening 45 minutes of 90.

Felipe Massa was the only other top driver to work throughout the session, compiling data both with and without the F-Duct on his Ferrari.

With the light fading to darkness to lend the floodlit street circuit ever greater allure, the title contenders emerged to fight it out in the closing minutes.

Traffic caused problems for championship-leading Red Bull driver Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton while the latter's McLaren team-mate Jenson Button immediately went 10th.

With six minutes remaining Button went P1 despite hitting traffic only for first Adrian Sutil (Force India) then Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) to spend moments at the top of the pile.

Schumacher was not to be outdone and his lap-time of a minute 54.708 seconds seemed likely to be the quickest after Sutil could only find enough for second spot with his final effort.

However he reckoned without Webber, who flew around the now-dry circuit in 1:54.589 to claim bragging rights for a couple of hours at least.

Vettel ended in fourth and Button sixth, with Alguersuari of Toro Rosso between them.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso finished 11th ahead of Kobayashi while Hamilton (18th) and Massa (19th) were well outside the top 10.