Zoom Hamilton P1 after first practice in Singapore

The first practice session of the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix saw championship leader Lewis Hamilton set the pace under the impressive artificial lighting. The new venue, combined with an healthy crowd and tricky circuit saw the usual suspects at the head of the timesheets, but based on the 90-minutes of running so far at the 5.067km track, we should have an entertaining weekend ahead.

The best times naturally came at the end of the session with Hamilton recording a best time of 1:45.518s in his McLaren Mercedes, 0.080s ahead of championship rival Felipe Massa in his Ferrari. Kimi Raikkonen languished down the timesheets early on, but a final run saw the Finn vault third fastest albeit four-tenths shy of the leading duo.

Heikki Kovalainen was one of many to find and exceed the limits of adhesion on his way to the fourth best time in the second McLaren Mercedes while Robert Kubica rang the neck of the BMW Sauber to take the fifth fastest time, some 1.1 seconds off the ultimate pace.

Nico Rosberg was an encouraging sixth fastest in the leading Williams Toyota while Fernando Alonso led Renault’s charge with the seventh best time ahead of Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet. Jenson Button rounded out the top ten for the Honda team after a promising opening session.

Monza winner Sebastian Vettel set the 11th best time in his Toro Rosso while team-mate Sebastien Bourdais sat out the final minutes of the session and was 14th best with Kazuki Nakajima and Timo Glock in between for Williams and Toyota respectively.

It was a difficult session for the Red Bull Renault team with Mark Webber crashing out after just four laps at turn 18 while David Coulthard was a full three seconds off the ultimate pace in 15th.

Rubens Barrichello spun his Honda late in the session and made contact with the retaining wall at the final turn. It would take over ten minutes for the lightly damaged Honda to be removed meaning that only in the final three minutes of running were the drivers able to post fast lap times.

Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella were 17th and 18th respectively for Force India ahead of Jarno Trulli who suffered a high speed spin in what looked to be an especially ill-handling Toyota.

It is a learning experience for the 20 race drivers and they now only have a short pause ahead of the second free practice session.

Earl ALEXANDER
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