Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the first practice session for the Singapore Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver’s best lap of 1’47.055 was three-and-a-half seconds faster than the quickest time from the same session last year. The alterations to turn ten, plus resurfacing at several points on the track, appear to have contributed to the fall in lap times.
An uneventful session ended with Hamilton followed by the two Red Bull drivers and the second Mercedes of team mate Nico Rosberg.
A steering fault was diagnosed on Romain Grosjean’s car during his installation lap and he spent over an hour in the pits having it repaired. Once he returned to the track he lapped just a thousandth of a second off team mate Kimi Raikkonen.
Fernando Alonso was the fastest Ferrari in seventh with team mate Felipe Massa outside the top ten.
Eighth-placed Sergio Perez was over two seconds off Hamilton’s time, with Jean-Eric Vergne ninth for Toro Rosso. Esteban Gutierrez put his Sauber in tenth place despite struggling with rear tyre degradation in the last sector.
2013 Singapore Grand Prix
- Penalty for third reprimand “disappointing” – Webber
- Di Resta still unsure over cause of Singapore crash
- Fourth Driver of the Weekend win for Vettel
- Second-lowest ever rating for Singapore Grand Prix
- 2013 Singapore Grand Prix team radio transcript
Image © Mercedes/Hoch Zwei
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th September 2013, 12:39
So we’ll not even have to worry about the race surpassing the 2 hours limit…
With that goes all the drama this race usually offers, unless people crash on purpose…
Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
20th September 2013, 12:41
Hamiltons really fired up for this grand prix!, his win in 2009 was probably one of his best ever.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
20th September 2013, 13:12
Actually, if we get the usual two safety car periods, the race will probably last exactly two hours. If the track is 3½ seconds faster than before, that makes the whole race (61 laps) some 3½ minutes faster overall – and last year’s race was stopped after 59 laps, two short of the scheduled distance.
JCost (@jcost)
20th September 2013, 13:20
@fer-no65 if it’s dry, I think 2 hours mark won’t be met.
Alonso may be 1 second faster but Hamilton should be 4 seconds faster than last year :)
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th September 2013, 16:43
@jcost Wanna bet :P?
JCost (@jcost)
20th September 2013, 22:55
@fer-no65 like a race track, my bets are dynamic :) now:
VET
HAM
ROS
WEB
ALO
:)
72defender (@72defender)
20th September 2013, 14:08
+1
Jan
20th September 2013, 12:42
I hope for a Hamilton win, and I also hope that webber stays ahead of vettel. It would be nice if Rosberg could get a bit closer to hamilton and get ahead of the bulls. He seems to be losing ground to hamilton, especially with te seasion progressing
Matt (@matt80hot)
20th September 2013, 12:44
Now who’d do that !?? :-)
Timothy Katz (@timothykatz)
20th September 2013, 12:54
Did Hulkenberg have problems? Surprised to see him so far behind Gutierrez. 17 laps, so not an extremely low total.
Sri Harsha (@harsha)
20th September 2013, 12:58
He reported “the engine acceleration power feels quite poor” , It may be the cause
Timothy Katz (@timothykatz)
20th September 2013, 13:10
Ta!
JCost (@jcost)
20th September 2013, 13:22
Maybe fuel pump issues, says the armchair mechanic in me…
Nick (@npf1)
20th September 2013, 13:12
I bet that’s why Ferrari is down; they thought it’d only be a second faster. ;)
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:18
Is there a video of his lap? I want to see the new n°10 corner ^^
Mayank (@mjf1fan)
20th September 2013, 13:30
Finally hammy with a Merc cap on..!! :D
Force Maikel (@force-maikel)
20th September 2013, 13:32
Garry Anderson reckons Ferrari was trying out their new front wing and with proper adjustments they will step up to the pace in FP2. Well I certainly do hop so because that car looked verry unstable in FP1.
Seeing as Ferrari and Lotus have proven to have a car that can be easy on the tyres when it nees to be, perhaps they could well be doing very well on this abbrasive surface. Then again RB en Mercedes didn’t look so bad on tyres as well…
Corner 10 is way better then I expected, we will forget that damn sling in no time. If anyone doubted that corner would become easy now, I just saw someone crash there in GP2 (Mitch Evans)
Todfod (@todfod)
20th September 2013, 15:35
Not a lot of surprises … Mercedes showing their single lap quali pace. Lotus showing some decent race pace. Ferrari struggling to get things right… and Red Bull with the strongest race pace, and quali pace to fight with Mercedes on Saturday.
I think I’m ready to make my prediction for the week already…