Hamilton on top as times tumble in Singapore

2013 Singapore Grand Prix first practice

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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.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
110Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’47.05520
22Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’47.4200.36520
31Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’47.8850.83019
49Nico RosbergMercedes1’48.2391.18423
57Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault1’48.3541.29918
68Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’48.3551.30012
73Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’48.3621.30721
86Sergio PerezMcLaren1’49.2672.21220
918Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari1’49.3482.29323
1012Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’49.3552.30021
1116Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1’49.4812.42620
124Felipe MassaFerrari1’49.4932.43816
1317Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1’49.5102.45521
145Jenson ButtonMcLaren1’49.6082.55320
1514Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1’49.8872.83218
1615Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’50.0923.03720
1711Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari1’50.2223.16717
1819Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’50.7573.70216
1922Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth1’52.3595.30416
2023Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth1’52.6735.61815
2121Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault1’52.9205.86524
2220Charles PicCaterham-Renault1’53.6476.59223

2013 Singapore Grand Prix

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Image © Mercedes/Hoch Zwei

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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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18 comments on “Hamilton on top as times tumble in Singapore”

  1. 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…

    1. Hamiltons really fired up for this grand prix!, his win in 2009 was probably one of his best ever.

    2. 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.

    3. @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 :)

        1. @fer-no65 like a race track, my bets are dynamic :) now:

          VET
          HAM
          ROS
          WEB
          ALO

          :)

  2. 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

  3. Now who’d do that !?? :-)

  4. Did Hulkenberg have problems? Surprised to see him so far behind Gutierrez. 17 laps, so not an extremely low total.

    1. He reported “the engine acceleration power feels quite poor” , It may be the cause

      1. Maybe fuel pump issues, says the armchair mechanic in me…

  5. I bet that’s why Ferrari is down; they thought it’d only be a second faster. ;)

  6. Is there a video of his lap? I want to see the new n°10 corner ^^

  7. Finally hammy with a Merc cap on..!! :D

  8. 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)

  9. 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…

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