Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel signalled his Formula One title defence isn’t over on Friday, clocking the quickest times in both practice sessions for the Singapore Grand Prix.
On the floodlit street circuit, damp after heavy afternoon rain, the two-time defending champion recorded 1min 50.566sec in the first stint and then lowered it to 1:48.340 in the later run.
McLaren’s Jenson Button was second quickest in the later session followed by the championship leader, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari. Red Bull’s Mark Webber was fourth fastest with Lewis Hamilton placing fifth.
Vettel, Formula One’s youngest double champion, lies fourth in the season standings and 39 points back from pace-setter Alonso with seven races to go.
With McLaren’s Hamilton and Button sharing the last three race wins between them, the pressure is on Red Bull to fix reliability issues which have plagued Vettel and keep him back in the championship race.
Force India pair Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg were sixth and seventh fastest in the later run, with Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, Ferrari driver Felipe Massa and Lotus pilot Romain Grosjean rounding out the top 10.
The session was held up for several minutes after Bruno Senna scraped his Williams car along a barrier and left it static in a chicane, making the track impassable until a crane could lift it clear.
Ma Qinghua, who became the first Chinese driver to take part in Formula One during practice for this month’s Italian Grand Prix, finished slowest of the opening practice for HRT.
With seven races to go, Alonso leads the standings by 37 points ahead of Hamilton, who has won two of the last three races. Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel are both close behind with Webber fifth.