With the ambient and track temperatures consistently lower than 20 °C (68 °F), the teams struggled to find the optimal performance band for the tyres.

Several driver changes were also made for the first practice session, with Daniel Ricciardo running in the place of Jaime Alguersuari at Scuderia Toro Rosso, Karun Chandhok assuming Jarno Trulli's seat at Team Lotus, and Nico Hülkenberg driving for Force India in the place of Paul di Resta.

The Indian driver was the first car to take to the circuit and lost control on his installation lap, spinning off and crashing into a wall on the exit of turn three.

Several other drivers, including Felipe Massa, Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg all experienced troubles at the third corner, running wide into the gravel trap.

The damage to Chandhok's car was minimal, and Jarno Trulli was able to resume his seat in time for the second practice session.

The final half hour was run under race conditions as a simulation of the DRS in order to check that the system was properly implemented.

Hispania Racing did not take part in the first practice session, with the team spending most of the day building both of their cars in the pit garage.

Vitantonio Liuzzi was able to leave the garage three minutes before the end of the second practice session and completed an installation lap, but did not set a time.

The session was otherwise incident-free, although Williams experienced delays when a gearbox problem kept Rubens Barrichello in his pit garage and Pastor Maldonado spun off the circuit and was unable to rejoin which meant they joined Pérez, Karthikeyan and Liuzzi to complete less than 10 laps in practice 3.

Nick Heidfeld was the other Q1 elimination, first of all experiencing a problem with the KERS device on his R31 and later encountering traffic that compromised his flying lap.

Jaime Alguersuari qualified twelfth, followed by rookie drivers Pérez, Paul di Resta and Pastor Maldonado.

Adrian Sutil was left sixteenth on the grid when, on a fast flying lap, he activated his DRS and KERS devices simultaneously as he came out of the final corner, pitching him into a spin.

Mark Webber held second place for much of the period before Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were able to split the Red Bull cars.

Vitaly Petrov was sixth for Renault, ahead of Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes, Felipe Massa, Kamui Kobayashi and Sébastien Buemi.

The rest of the field passed through the first lap safely, sparing a run across the gravel for Rubens Barrichello in an attempt to avoid the incident, which dropped him to last.

Heikki Kovalainen retired his Lotus T128 on the same lap with a water leak, whilst Timo Glock was initially parked in the garage with a mechanical failure before he was able to return to the circuit.

With the race moving into its final phase, Webber and Alonso both pitted, rejoining the circuit some twenty seconds behind Petrov.

Jenson Button finished sixth ahead of the Saubers of Sergio Pérez in seventh and Kamui Kobayashi in eighth, while Felipe Massa crossed the line ninth, almost ninety seconds behind Vettel.

During post-race inspection both Saubers of Kobayashi and Pérez were found not to comply with sporting regulations due to a technical infringement involving the uppermost element of the rear wing, disqualifying them both from the standings.

[12] The race results were adjusted with Massa placed seventh, Buemi in eighth, and the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta promoted into ninth and tenth – and points-scoring positions – respectively.