The Shanghai International circuit had been declared wet for the third and final free practice session of the weekend and the Toro Rosso of Tonio Liuzzi was sporting wets as he opened the hour. Scott Speed, Ralf Schumacher, Takuma Sato and Jarno Trulli followed Liuzzi onto the wet track. Ralf Schumacher continues on to set the opening time of the day, a 1:38.812 with teammate Jarno Trulli more than a second off the pace, plumes of water spraying from their Bridgestone tyres.

Trulli improves his time to within half a second as Nico Rosberg goes third. Jenson Button begins a flying lap and he puts his Honda at the top of the leaderboard. Scott Speed takes P2 but only briefly as David Coulthard slots the sister Red Bull two tenths behind Button. Coulthard improves on his next lap as does Speed with the Toro Rosso five tenths faster than the Scotsman to take P1.

New driver for the Red Bull team, Robert Doornbos, is on a flyer and goes second, three hundredths behind Speed. Felipe Massa, who will lose ten places on the grid due to an unscheduled engine change, emerges from pit lane and begins his first flying lap of the day, P1 for the Ferrari driver.

Ron Dennis watches the monitors, both his drivers still firmly in the garage with forty minutes remaining. Pedro de la Rosa has completed an installation lap, however it looks as if they are waiting for track conditions to improve. Most of the field follow suit with very little on track action.

A dry line begins to appear as Robert Doornbos laps the Chinese track and with twenty minutes remaining, eight drivers are yet to set a time. He moves into top spot, but only for a second as David Coulthard takes over but just under two tenths of a second. Liuzzi improves to sixth indicating that track conditions are improving so Ralf Schumacher takes the plunge and emerges on dry Bridgestone tyres, the first driver to do so in the session, with less than fifteen minutes remaining. Twelfth at the start of the lap with a 1:47.994, the Toyota driver improves by just a few tenths as Jenson Button eaves pitlane on dry Michelins. Teammate Rubens Barrichello follows suit while Michael Schumacher finally joins the action, also on dry tyres.

Felipe Massa spins on the drying track, teammate Michael Schumacher 16^th on his first lap, over seven seconds off the pace. Brother Ralf goes fifth as Michael begins another lap, the Ferrari driver on a flyer and crosses the line for P1 with Sato second in the Super Aguri!

Five minutes remain and with the track conditions improving all the time, Alonso emerges for his first run. Button goes second, but Sato reclaims the position. Pedro de la Rosa goes third while teammate Kimi Raikkonen is in the gravel! Albers moves into P2, Alonso third and Rosberg fourth but de la Rosa is on another flyer and takes second for McLaren as the final minute approaches. Yellow flags are flying due to Super Aguri’s Sakon Yamamoto but that doesn’t stop Alonso from taking P2 and Button third!