The first night of practice for the Singapore Grand Prix produced a surprise as neither of the Mercedes drivers appeared in the top three places at the end of running.
Both Red Bulls and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari demoted the silver cars which more often than not have place one-two in practice sessions this year.
Mercedes played a strong hand in practice at Monza two weeks ago but Sebastian Vettel is convinced they’re saving their true performance for Saturday.
“We know that the Mercedes don’t show everything on Friday, and as expected the Red Bulls are fairly quick here as well.”
“I was not entirely happy with my short-runs,” added Vettel, who was three-tenths off Raikkonen in the second session, “so for qualifying we still have to improve a bit, but for the race it
looked OK.”
Vettel’s pace on his longest stint seemed quicker than Raikkonen’s (see below). However Daniel Ricciardo’s was the most convincing, lapping further and faster than the Mercedes drivers using the super-soft tyre, giving Toto Wolff cause for concern.
Even allowing for the possibility Mercedes was running a considerably heavier fuel load, Red Bull has clearly delivered on the expectation they would be competitive at Singapore.
Max Verstappen was quietly impressive on his first visit to the street track, as he was in Monaco. The Toro Rosso driver appeared in the top ten during both sessions.
“Physically this is the toughest track so far this year” said Verstappen, who is 12 days shy of his 18th birthday, “but I’m coping well as we trained very hard before getting here”.
Longest stint comparison – second practice
This chart shows selected drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:
Complete practice times
| Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | Total laps | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull-Renault | 1’51.188 | 1’46.142 | 41 | ||
| 2 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’48.785 | 1’46.181 | 54 | ||
| 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-Renault | 1’48.331 | 1’46.256 | 49 | ||
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’48.314 | 1’46.479 | 57 | ||
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’48.494 | 1’46.487 | 57 | ||
| 6 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’50.125 | 1’46.659 | 52 | ||
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’47.995 | 1’46.781 | 61 | ||
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Honda | 1’50.123 | 1’46.959 | 46 | ||
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 1’49.854 | 1’47.294 | 55 | ||
| 10 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’49.466 | 1’47.427 | 48 | ||
| 11 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1’51.035 | 1’47.684 | 46 | ||
| 12 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’50.158 | 1’47.755 | 43 | ||
| 13 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’50.883 | 1’47.795 | 54 | ||
| 14 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Honda | 1’50.455 | 1’47.888 | 48 | ||
| 15 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’50.019 | 1’48.012 | 50 | ||
| 16 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’50.341 | 1’48.096 | 55 | ||
| 17 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 1’49.380 | 1’48.118 | 47 | ||
| 18 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Mercedes | 1’50.068 | 1’50.094 | 50 | ||
| 19 | Will Stevens | Manor-Ferrari | 1’53.903 | 1’59.932 | 23 | ||
| 20 | Alexander Rossi | Manor-Ferrari | 1’53.918 | 1’56.739 | 26 |
Kingshark (@kingshark)
18th September 2015, 18:54
Last year Mercedes was only 0.170 s faster than Red Bull and 0.220 s faster than Ferrari. Maybe it’s just something about Singapore.
N
18th September 2015, 19:59
It’s not just ‘something’. It has a low average speed, simple. No long straights and high speed corners to exploit good engine power and aerodynamics.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
19th September 2015, 1:30
That doesn’t seem to hamper them around Monaco.
N
19th September 2015, 12:32
People have improved since Monaco
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
19th September 2015, 0:15
@kingshark I think you are right. Watching Lewis 2014 pole, the handling doesn’t look right, missing apexes, suffering from understeer and riding poorly over the bumps. FP1 today was almost the same albeit no massive understeer. There must be a connection between Singapore and the weaknesses of the Mercedes team. Honestly Hamilton’s monza pole was far from a perfect lap, Kimi was still Mercedes had more pace. Also Lewis said spa lap was perfect unlike Monza’s. Maybe Merc hasn’t adapted to this change yet, maybe tomorrow.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
18th September 2015, 19:03
I agree. Mercedes didn’t show their true pace right away at Monza either, so most likely they were holding back. Maybe to make the competition feel like they have a chance for at least 1 day.
oya
18th September 2015, 20:09
Vettel’s new helmet is so cute (: :P
Patrick (@paeschli)
19th September 2015, 12:46
What’s new? The colors of the German flag who are reflective now?
DonSmee (@david-beau)
18th September 2015, 20:14
The RedBull chassis is really light on its feet. The RedBull aerodynamics is also designed to work good near walls.
hobo (@hobo)
18th September 2015, 20:19
I seem to recall that last year Mercedes’ dominance was reduced the softer the tires. I’m sure someone will disabuse me of this memory if it is false, but I recall Red Bull last year and Ferrari this year being closer especially on the supersofts. I feel like the Mercs can’t switch them on or burn them up or something.
@HoHum (@hohum)
19th September 2015, 0:29
@hobo, you may be onto something, Bernie might be behind Pirellis sudden desire to use softer tyres, he always wants to reduce the leading teams dominance.
Mark Backes (@markf1)
18th September 2015, 20:19
Ricciardo’s long stint pace looks scary.
AntoineDeParis (@antoine-de-paris)
18th September 2015, 21:22
Ric and RBR are starving for a stellar performance. So far, this season has been rude awakening for them.
Let’s not forget, Ric had a plan to fight for WDC this year…
Illusive (@illusive)
19th September 2015, 9:17
Scary good or scary bad.
wert
18th September 2015, 22:16
Well, I heard RB was significantly lighter than Mercedes and Ferrari. To the point that all of their supposed advantage in FP2 would evaporate, but they would still be on par with them, give or take a couple of hundreds….
Black 'n' Blue15
18th September 2015, 22:27
Mega consistency from Dan (at least comparatively speaking). The Car looks balanced from the onboard shots. Yes, I know we’ve seen it before where Mercedes keep a good chunk of time in their back-pocket until later in the weekend, but on a track as technically demanding as Singapore with a lot of corners, bumps and a track that tends to give the Front Right Tyre a bit of a battering in race trim, maybe there’s potential for an upset.
The inevitable Safety Car intervention could put the pressure cooker Merc Strategists in their place again, and we know there’ll be someone there to pick up the pieces based on the lap time evidence already laid on the table by the Bulls. We know the Tyres haven’t always switched on for the Mercs, Traffic is tricky to negotiate and overtaking around Singapore is a tough gig. My fancy is that with that Senna record nonsense hanging in the air over Hammy and with haze quite literally and mentally hanging over Rosberg’s title bid, I think somehow we’ll get a non-Mercedes win. 08′ shows how mad of a result this place can throw up, it’s made to deliver the unexpected.
jale
18th September 2015, 23:25
Ferrari look so unhinged. As always… Congratulations to their drivers for keeping it out of the wall. Barely.
marcusbreese (@marcusbreese)
19th September 2015, 10:30
Red Bull are probably just grandstanding on low fuel to show VW that they a worthy purchase… I suspect they’ll be the usual distance behind the Mercs and battling the Ferrari’s.