Vettel stays on top in Singapore

2012 Singapore Grand Prix second practice

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Sebastian Vettel stayed on top in the second practice session ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver was one of the last to do a time on the super-soft tyre and set a time over three-tenths of a second quicker than Jenson Button.

The other McLaren of Lewis Hamilton had set the pace earlier one, but Hamilton lost time by running wide at the final corner. His lap was beaten by Mark Webber and then Fernando Alonso.

Bruno Senna caused a brief stoppage in the session after clipping the barrier at turn 19. He spun to a halt at turn 20 and practice had to be red-flagged so it could be recovered.

A few other drivers had moments during the session, including Narain Karthikeyan who thumped the kerbs hard at turn ten.

Kamui Kobayashi spun at turn 18 as the session was coming to an end and had to reverse back to turn 19 so he could get going again.

The Force India pair of Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg were sixth and seventh, followed by Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa and the returnign Romain Grosjean.

the other Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen developed an hydraulic problem and he had to pit during his high-fuel run at the end of the session.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
11Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’48.34027
23Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’48.6510.31124
35Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’48.8960.55626
42Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’48.9640.62426
54Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’49.0860.74628
611Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’49.3000.96030
712Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’49.3390.99932
88Nico RosbergMercedes1’49.7901.45032
96Felipe MassaFerrari1’50.0391.69928
1010Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’50.1611.82124
117Michael SchumacherMercedes1’50.2631.92323
129Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’50.3452.00524
1318Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’50.6362.29632
1416Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’50.7912.45126
1515Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’51.1222.78228
1614Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’51.4503.11021
1719Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault1’51.4523.11211
1817Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’52.0093.66931
1924Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1’52.2183.87829
2020Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’52.5764.23627
2125Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1’52.8634.52327
2221Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’52.9364.59626
2322Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth1’54.4486.10826
2423Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’54.5146.17430

2012 Singapore Grand Prix

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Image © Singapore GP/Sutton

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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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34 comments on “Vettel stays on top in Singapore”

  1. Except in exceptional circumstances, the challenge will be between Vettel and Hamilton with Alonso ready to take the opportunity along with Button and Webber. Pale Massa, after the exploits of Spa and Monza, is back in the mid-low positions of the ranking …

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kamui-Kobayashi-in-Ferrari-the-return/273978009380220

    1. That reminds me of Mika Salo actually. Really strong on the high speed circuits (Salo finished 2nd at Hockenheim, where he gave the win to Irvine, and 3rd at Monza), compared to the other circuits.

    2. Agreed. Unfortunately Kimi is looking like he’s no where this weekend. He can best hope for a 5th place to stay in the title hunt.

      Red Bull is clearly on top of these high downforce circuits… provided the alternator holds up. Predicting a Vettel-Alonso-Webber podium.

  2. 0.2 seconds separating a toro rosso and a marussia!
    that’s a surprise!

    1. Stellar lap by Glock!!

      1. Glock’s good round Singapore. Got 2nd for Toyota in 09 and had a Virgin running in the points for a while in 2010- holding off Sutil and several other much faster cars on their newer tyres.

        1. And 4th in 2008, when Raikkonen hit the wall chasing him.

    2. Marussia really do look to be taking a big step forward. It looked like Caterham would be the team to pull in the Torro Rosso’s, but they’ve disappointed this season. Perhaps the Marussia / McClaren tecnical partnership is starting to pay dividends. I doubt they’ll finish last this season at least.

    3. Take the average times set by each team mate then see what the difference becomes. Multiply by some unknown equalising constant, and you get the true picture that Marussia are still over 2 seconds away from the next extablished team, and Caterham are just not fully tuned to the circuit.

    4. Especially given that Marussia don’t have KERS.

    5. It’s only Vergne, though…

  3. Kieth do you have the sector times for the best times? That would be a nice addition to the free practice results.

      1. Hamilton losing a lot of time in S3. On the other hand, Vettel is lightning quick in that sector.
        Alonso undoubtedly has the third fastest car with the McLarens and Red Bull quicker in each sector. P5 would be his deserved position on the car’s merit. The rest will be skill and luck.

    1. The ultimate laps are posted in the FP analysis, look out for it on this site later.

  4. Wow, there’s a full .039 difference between Paul di Resta and Hulkenberg. Is that a new record ? Paul really has widen the gap today !

  5. Im impressed with Karthikeyan being forced to sit out FP1 but getting right on DLR’s pace in second practice.

    1. Yes, maybe the threat of Ma is persuading KAR to push a bit…

      It is most certainly working, if that is the case ^_^

      1. @cg22me I think he also put his foot down a little more in Monza too from what I remember.

        1. Exactly… Beating DLR, never mind that, beating a team mate, for the first time in quite a while ^_^

          It can only be a good sign for poor ol’ Karthikeyan!

  6. With all the comments about how this will be a “close race”, is anyone else surprised that the spread for the top ten is approx 2 seconds? Even the first three are over half a second apart. I know that FP times are not necessarily “reliable” for all sorts of reasons, but I really thought these times might have been closer today…

    Keith, do you have (easily — you do enough splendid work already) available “spread statistics” of this sort?

    1. Part that is due to the lap-time being longer than at most tracks, Monza was about 20-25s shorter, (1:25 versus 1:48 in FP2), or about 20% of the Singapore time; a 25% bigger spread would be normal at least. Probably more because at this track the aero advantage of the top teams counts for more (tough I do now see that the fastest quali times of the top 10 were well within 0.7s in Hungary).

  7. Webber seems to be so “track dependant”. If he likes the track, he’s good and he’s able to challenge Vettel. But if he doesn’t like the track, he slips down a lot.

    Or maybe he doesn’t like Singapore because he struggles there? there’s always a huge difference between him and Vettel here.

    1. I think he doesn’t like circuits where kerb-riding is important. I think generally it’s the slower circuits where he can’t hold up to Vettel, with Monaco being the exception.

      1. @raymondu999 or maybe he gets depressed about the dullness of some circuits, particularly Abu Dhabi. He always says he hates those circuits, and it shows…

        1. davidnotcoulthard
          22nd September 2012, 0:50

          Tilkedromes? OK, OK, I understand, Mark…

        2. Hmm. Possible. Singapore and Abu Dhabi are the ones that really stick out as Mark not being able to light a candle – let alone hold one – to Seb.

        3. Yet Barcelona is supposed to be one of his favorites?

  8. That’s one heck of a gap from Vettel. This circuit really does separate the cars so much and perfectly displays just how the RBR philosophy of high downforce works for them at this track. I’d like to see them do well this weekend. They had a dismal trip to Italy and Vettel was a pleasure to watch at Spa.

  9. I wonder if Vettel can recover the deficit to Alonso; I’m hoping for the best!

    1. That is fine with me as long as Hamilton does it first!

  10. I had “special accommodation” for FP2, but I spent a bit of FP1 really watching from different points in the circuit to get a feel (best places to really see if a driver is “on it” is T13 and the sequence at 15/16/17 – the first chicane of S3), and Vettel drove like he was on a mission. Provided his alternator holds he’s my victory favorite.

  11. Looks like yet again Lotuses are well off the pace :/ Their double DRS system has to be magnificient upgrade or otherwise Kimi’s hunt for the title is pretty much over.

  12. Lotus has had really disappointing pace in the last two races, and it seems like are even slower here.

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