Vettel completes Singapore practice hat-trick

2012 Singapore Grand Prix third practice

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Sebastian Vettel was quickest again in the final practice session for the Singapore Grand Prix.

He set a best time of 1’47.947 ten minutes before the end of the session, which none of his rivals were able to beat.

Lewis Hamilton came closest, falling short by a third of a second. Fernando Alonso was third-quickest, another three-tenths of a second behind.

There were five different cars in the top five with Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India followed by Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus.

The session came to an early end after Vitaly Petrov crashed at turn 21, breaking the right-rear suspension on his Caterham and spinning to a halt at the pit lane entrance. That brought out the red flags.

Two other drivers had already made less serious contract with the barriers. Sergio Perez glanced the wall at turn 18 and Mark Webber did the same later on, limping back into the pits with a puncture.

However Timo Glock impressively kept his car out of the barriers despite the throttle sticking open.

Felipe Massa was sixth-fastest after a lap which he said had been full of mistakes. Paul di Resta complained of a loss of grip in his Force India and was seventh.

Nico Rosberg, Bruno Senna and Michael Schumacher completed the top ten, though the late red flag meant not everyone had done flying laps on the super-soft tyres.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
11Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’47.94715
24Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’48.2720.32515
35Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’48.6230.67611
412Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’48.8590.91216
59Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’48.8650.91817
66Felipe MassaFerrari1’49.4581.51113
711Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’49.6841.73715
88Nico RosbergMercedes1’49.6991.75216
919Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault1’49.7151.76814
107Michael SchumacherMercedes1’49.9812.03414
112Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’50.1102.16312
123Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’50.5242.57710
1316Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’50.6642.71716
1414Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’50.7772.83015
1510Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’50.8402.89315
1618Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’51.0123.06515
1717Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’51.0593.11217
1815Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’51.2723.32510
1925Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1’52.2904.34316
2021Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’53.7815.83412
2120Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’54.3266.37914
2223Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’54.4216.47414
2324Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1’54.6306.6839
2422Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth1’54.8756.92814

Combined practice times

PosDriverCarFP1FP2FP3Fri/Sat diffTotal laps
1Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’50.5661’48.3401’47.947-0.39366
2Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’50.6151’49.0861’48.272-0.81458
3Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’51.5251’48.8961’48.623-0.27357
4Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’51.4591’48.6511’50.524+1.87351
5Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’51.6581’49.3391’48.859-0.4872
6Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’52.7161’50.3451’48.865-1.4857
7Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’51.6551’48.9641’50.110+1.14657
8Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’51.9431’49.3001’49.684+0.38466
9Felipe MassaFerrari1’53.0801’50.0391’49.458-0.58158
10Nico RosbergMercedes1’53.2271’49.7901’49.699-0.09174
11Bruno SennaWilliams-Renault1’52.6291’51.4521’49.715-1.73750
12Michael SchumacherMercedes1’52.9861’50.2631’49.981-0.28258
13Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’53.0281’50.1611’50.840+0.67959
14Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’51.5761’50.6361’51.012+0.37667
15Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’52.2751’50.7911’50.664-0.12766
16Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’52.8391’51.4501’50.777-0.67359
17Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’53.1891’52.0091’51.059-0.9573
18Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’52.2961’51.1221’51.272+0.1557
19Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1’54.9081’52.2181’54.630+2.41258
20Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1’55.3351’52.8631’52.290-0.57365
21Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1’55.0911’52.5761’54.326+1.7557
22Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1’55.7601’52.9361’53.781+0.84560
23Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’54.5141’54.421-0.09344
24Pedro de la RosaHRT-Cosworth1’56.6561’54.4481’54.875+0.42761
25Ma Qing HuaHRT-Cosworth1’58.05320

2012 Singapore Grand Prix

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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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12 comments on “Vettel completes Singapore practice hat-trick”

  1. Looks like it’ll be a Red Bull win from pole!

  2. Red bull appears like glued on the track

  3. Nico Hulkenberg got a good lap in also (albeit some of the guys behind didn’t get their flying laps in) but Force India may be able to reclaim some of the deficit to Sauber in the constructors.

  4. Can’t believe that Webber’s suspension didn’t sustain any damage after that

  5. What was the episode with Vettel and the photographers?

    I’ve heard various conflicting reports, but if some of them are even half true, then he’ll be summoned to the stewards for sure.

      1. @keithcollantine – Thanks. It’s times like this that I wish we got coverage of free practice.

        If Vettel was warned that there might be photographers in the way, why did he cut the kerb anyway? It may not be as near as miss as I have been led to believe, but to my mind, common sense dictates that if you get a warning like that, you don’t cut the kerb. Furthermore, why didn’t Red Bull move to have the photographers moved on? All it would take is a quick visit to Charlie Whiting and the track marshalls could escort them out.

        Something in this doesn’t sound right, but I think I’m going to need to reserve judgement until I see a replay.

  6. Hamilton made few mistakes thru that lap so there’s not a promess that RedBull will win the pole

  7. Vettel and Hamilton by this order will claim front row on qualifying, and then Webber, Button and Alonso will fight for the remaining top 5 places, though there could be some surprises, with the top teams trying to save super soft tyres on Q1 which are 1,5 s slower than the softs which might prove to be very dangerous (RB will definitely only use the softs in Q1, because they can count on STR to help them).

  8. Hrm. So Lotus found about a second and a half overnight, apparently by going back to Hungary spec. Shame RBR and McLaren found about half a second as well :D

  9. Looks like vettel has got his car hooked to the floor all the way through. Lewis might be able to challenge him for pole. Whilst all this is going on, Alonso will be happy collecting decent points till the end of the season and claim the title. He definitely needs a bad race or two to shake him up.
    Let the green light for qualifying roll!

  10. Nice spin from Petrov in the session. It seemed to escalate from nothing (though obviously it didn’t). It was just funny!

Comments are closed.