F1 is gearing up for the third running of its unique night race around the streets of Singapore.
Have all the important information for this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix at your fingertips with the F1 Fanatic unofficial race programme:
The race
Singapore Grand Prix preview – Red Bull’s pace key to championship outcome
Nick Heidfeld replaces Pedro de la Rosa at Sauber – Heidfeld will start his first Grand Prix since Abu Dhabi last year this weekend. Check out his new helmet design
D’Ambrosio to drive for Virgin on Fridays – Also making an appearance is Jerome d’Ambrosio, who will drive for Virgin in Friday practice
Championship points – Heading to Singapore Mark Webber has a five-point advantage over Lewis Hamilton but any one of five drivers could be in the lead after this weekend’s race
Singapore Grand Prix live comments and TV times – When to catch the sessions live with F1 Fanatic
The track
The Singapore street circuit is a long, slow lap, less than half of which is spent at full throttle. The drivers tackle 61 laps of the 5.073km circuit in the race which will take almost the maximum two hours.
Making life even more difficult, the race is held at night under floodlights.
This year the circuit has been resurfaced in places to ease the bumps. Here’s Robert Kubica’s guide to a lap of the track:
I think the Singapore circuit is very demanding, especially physically because there are no long straights and so many corners. And because the speed of the track is very low, the race is very long – something like an hour and 50 minutes of driving, which is really demanding. And you are constantly going from one corner to the next on a track that is quite bumpy. Even though there is quite a long straight after Turn 5 going down to Turn 7, there are so many bumps that you have to hold the steering wheel quite tight.
The end of this straight into Turn 7 is probably the best place for overtaking, but you need to get a good run out of Turn 5. However, the problem is that there are so many bumps off line and it’s very easy to lose the car. Although last year the bumps were better, the main problem with street circuits is that off line there is very little grip. The cars are going through the braking points all weekend, laying down rubber on the racing line, but as soon as you go off line to overtake, there’s a lot less rubber and often a lot of dust so it’s very, very tricky.
The turn 10 chicane is in many ways a strange corner, but also an amazing corner. It’s really very, very tight and a small mistake costs a lot because there are high kerbs. And we’ve seen some cars clipping the kerbs and launching in the air, especially the first year we raced there. I think everybody is now taking a bit of safety margin in this corner because it’s so easy to get it wrong and the price for a mistake is really expensive.
The last corner, is one of the trickiest parts of the lap, but fortunately there’s quite a big run-off area. The corner is quite long but actually the apex is very, very short. The first bit is your apex point and from then on you are on full throttle. If you pick up some understeer, you’re glad of the wider track, but the exit kerb is a bit bumpy and it’s very easy to lose the car.
Robert Kubica
Singapore street track circuit information – Track data, circuit maps and more.
Singapore eases bumps after complaints – Turns three to seven, 14 and 19 have received attention
The weather
The usual Singapore thunderstorms are in the area but they tend to clear up before the cars hit the track. See link below for more.
Read more: Singapore Grand Prix weather forecast
Following the race live
We’ll be commenting live on the Singapore Grand Prix from start to finish. Join us for the race, qualifying and all three practice sessions at these times:
Friday 24th September 2010
Singapore Grand Prix Free practice 1 – 18:00 – 19:30 (11:00 – 12:30)
Singapore Grand Prix Free practice 2 – 21:30 – 23:00 (14:30 – 16:00)
Saturday 25th September 2010
Singapore Grand Prix Free practice 3 – 19:00 – 20:00 (12:00 – 13:00)
Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying – 22:00 (15:00)
Sunday 26th September 2010
Singapore Grand Prix – 20:00 (13:00)
Times are local times with British time conversions in brackets.
More session times and live blog details here: Singapore Grand Prix live TV times
Also make sure you follow F1 Fanatic on Twitter for updates throughout the race weekend.
2009 Singapore Grand Prix highlights
Lewis Hamilton won his second race of the year despite a malfunctioning KERS unit.
Timo Glock rose to second place after Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg hit trouble.
And in a difficult weekend for Renault, amid a furore over the revelations of Nelson Piquet Jnr’s deliberate crash in the race 12 months earlier, Fernando Alonso took the R29 to a rare podium finish.
2009 Singapore Grand Prix review – Hamilton wins as Button closes on title
Previous Singapore Grands Prix
2008 Singapore Grand Prix – Fernando Alonso’s bad luck turns good for win
2010 Singapore Grand Prix
Images © www.mclaren.com, Toyota F1 World
codesurge
23rd September 2010, 11:43
Did the RBR video show turn 8 as being an overtaking spot instead of turn 7? Hmm..
roberttty
23rd September 2010, 12:08
Yes, apparently some drivers have singled out Turn 8 as their preferred passing point.
If I am not wrong, only Glock has managed to overtake at Turn 8 last year.
SouthAussie94 (@mpj1994)
23rd September 2010, 11:47
Im just curious Keith, but why do you need to put ‘Unofficial” in the title for all the pre and post race guides?
Excellent guide as always Keith.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
23rd September 2010, 11:51
It’s entirely out of choice – there is an official race programme, this isn’t it and I don’t want any confusion. Obviously I don’t do a post-race programme, though, the post race guide is just called the complete race weekend review.
Calum
23rd September 2010, 16:11
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9027945.stm
Found this video of Lewis Hamilton’s thoughts on the build up to Singapore. He forgets Mclaren missed out on the 08 Constructors, and his reaction on beong told the team has not won a Constructors since 1998 is quite funny :P
US_Peter (@us_peter)
23rd September 2010, 18:32
Bummer, can’t play it in the US.
Regis
24th September 2010, 2:59
Off topic sorry but can’t play the video either here in Australia. Whats the bbc’s reason for blocking everyone outside the UK?
whatsup
24th September 2010, 9:41
the UK viewers pay a TV license fee (around £145 a year) to keep BBC happy, in return the few good guys of BBC are producing an uninterrupted coverage of the all things F1 (pre- and post-race analysis, practice 1-3, online catchup, etc) … if you manage to find a free or cheap UK proxy, you can reconfigure your browser and watch the BBC F1 and iPlayer’s stuff from outside of UK
Regis
24th September 2010, 10:01
Thanks for that