Vettel leads Hamilton in damp session at Singapore

2012 Singapore Grand Prix first practice

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Sebastian Vettel headed the times after a damp first practice session at Singapore.

He took the fastest time off Lewis Hamilton late in the session with a lap of 1’50.566, 0.049s faster than the McLaren driver could manage.

Practice began on a damp track with some water off-line and even a few leaves, following heavy rain earlier in the day. Drivers made a tentative start to the session, with many using intermediate tyres for their first runs.

Kamui Kobayashi was the first driver to tackle the circuit using slicks and reeled off a string of fastest laps. This signalled the beginning of the real action, and the others followed him in using the soft tyres.

The times quickly tumbled, with Rosberg taking over at the top and Hamilton doing so as well, before Vettel sealed the best time of the session.

Jenson Button made a late improvement to take third place ahead of Fernando Alonso.

Pastor Maldonado was fifth, the Williams driver one of several to explore Singapore’s run-off areas during the session. Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean were also among those to go off, though all did so without damage.

HRT’s test driver Ma Qing Hua made his second appearance in an F1 session and was slowest, 1.4s off team mate Pedro de la Rosa.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
11Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’50.56624
24Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’50.6150.04915
33Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’51.4590.89317
45Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’51.5250.95920
518Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’51.5761.01020
62Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’51.6551.08919
712Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’51.6581.09224
811Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’51.9431.37721
916Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’52.2751.70924
1015Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’52.2961.73019
1119Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault1’52.6292.06325
129Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’52.7162.15016
1314Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’52.8392.27323
147Michael SchumacherMercedes1’52.9862.42021
1510Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’53.0282.46220
166Felipe MassaFerrari1’53.0802.51417
1717Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’53.1892.62325
188Nico RosbergMercedes1’53.2272.66126
1924Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1’54.9084.34220
2020Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’55.0914.52516
2125Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1’55.3354.76922
2221Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’55.7605.19422
2322Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth1’56.6566.09021
2423Ma Qing HuaHRT-Cosworth1’58.0537.48720

2012 Singapore Grand Prix

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Image © Sahara Force India F1 Team

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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17 comments on “Vettel leads Hamilton in damp session at Singapore”

  1. Force India were fast here last year also… but great to see Ricciardo up there.
    Williams almost all in top10 also.

    only FP1… I know…

  2. Marussia quicker than Caterham… interesting. I wonder, how much time will pass until Caterham will be shaked by reorganization, because they don’t produce any progress.

    1. Cyril Abiteboul Will join them next year as team manager….he is working for renault sport at the moment

    2. I think you’re wrong…Caterham were progressing quickly at the start of the year. Many times the gap to the next fastest car in qualifying would be around 0.5 secs or less. They used to be over 2 secs ahead of Marussia.

      Then they reached their high point in Valencia, where they were competitive with both Torro Rossos throughout the race. Ever since then, its been downhill, despite a substantial upgrade at one of the following races.

      I don’t know what went wrong…whether their new parts are actually a step back. But clearly they made progress at the start of the year and have fallen way back now, allowing Marrusia to match/beat them on pace.

    3. I think all in all Caterham is still in much much better possition. They’ve been doing some serious work for quite a while, and it’s taking long yeah, but the results should start to come.

      Marussia is reorganizing too, with a change of hands in the middle. But they are a bit later on the line, I guess…

  3. “Qing Hua Ma made his second appearance in an F1 session and was slowest, 1.4s off team mate Pedro de la Rosa” Better than Massa’s 1.5 sec. down, Ferrari 2013?

    1. And HRT only 1.4s quicker than Luca Filippi’s GP2 pole time. I know they’re very different cars but sometimes it does make me wonder why HRT even bother.

      1. That reminds me of the Life L190 f1 car, or whatever it was called, which was only 3 seconds faster than an F3 car.

  4. Good to see Pastor setting some good times. The Williams should be fast around here :)

  5. Interesting… could be set for a finely poised contest. The track would better suit Red Bull but Mclaren have been no slouches on high downforce circuits either.

    Not sure what season that guy on twitter’s been watching. Sure, Schumacher’s got better and closer, but Rosberg’s been “comprehensively outpaced” and taken a “dent” to his reputation? Come off it.

    1. I’m no fan of Schumacher. But other 2-3 races (China, Bahrain, cant remember).. I thought Schumacher was significantly better than his teammate. Dont know about the guy on twitter, but Rosberg went down a notch or two in my books this year.

  6. 3rd-7th separated by just 2 tenths. Would be nice if a couple more people could get themselves ahead of Alonso during quali tomorrow ;)

  7. Red Bull back on form? This could add yet another twist to both championships!

    1. Red Bull do look in form but there’s a big question mark over reliability this weekend. Red Bull are puttin pressure on Renault to end their collaboration with Magneti Marelli so, I guess those alternators are still an issue, apparently…

      1. Red Bull are puttin pressure on Renault to end their collaboration with Magneti Marelli

        i think this is silly, Red Bull are trying to put the blame on Magneti Marelli for their failure, the company said that the component in question was fine & its failure was due to an exceptional mechanical tension (Renault engines)

    2. Singapore is very hard on the cars, so alternators could be a problem. I was lead to believ it was a cooling issue, so wouldn’t simply ducting more air allow for them to be cooled sufficiently to not fail?

  8. Nice effort from Ma Qing Hua. He’s managed to improve on the gap to his team mate by half a second when compared to Monza. Given that this is a longer lap too and certainly more technical that’s a pretty solid effort I would say.

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