Singapore GP - A tough first day in Singapore
Singapore, 20 September
It’s been a long day in Singapore, which soon turned to night, as the F138s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa completed just over 517 kilometres of the Marina Bay circuit. It’s tough on the cars, as they bounce over the kerbs and use all their braking power and it’s equally tough on the drivers. It might get cooler when the sun goes down, but one look at their faces is enough to illustrate the difficulties of driving in such hot and humid conditions.
At the risk of repeating ourselves for the thirteenth time this season, it was the usual Friday, spent evaluating different aero configurations across the two cars, as well as taking a first look at the Medium Prime Pirelli and the Supersoft Option compound. Sebastian Vettel, the winner of the last two races here at Marina Bay, was quickest this afternoon, ahead of Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber. Third was Nico Rosberg, followed by his Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, who won here in 2009. Romain Grosjean was fifth in the Lotus, just ahead of Fernando in sixth, the only past winner of this race not mentioned so far, the Spaniard having been first past the flag in 2008 and 2010. As for Felipe, he was fifteenth fastest in the second session.
Reading too much into Friday’s times is a dangerous pastime, but both Ferrari men expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of their F138s. It was not entirely unexpected as the slower tracks which require the most downforce have not been particularly well suited to this year’s Prancing Horse car. However, while all race tracks evolve over the course of the weekend, as the surface rubbers in, that is even more the case at a street circuit that is more used to having trucks and taxis running up and down the roads, so the engineers will now be taking that into account as they evaluate all the data, covering all aspects of car performance from the tyres to the new updates, mainly aerodynamic, brought for this race. We usually talk about a long night ahead, but in this case, the work will finish as the sun begins to rise for the second day of track action at the Marina Drive night shift.
It’s been a long day in Singapore, which soon turned to night, as the F138s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa completed just over 517 kilometres of the Marina Bay circuit. It’s tough on the cars, as they bounce over the kerbs and use all their braking power and it’s equally tough on the drivers. It might get cooler when the sun goes down, but one look at their faces is enough to illustrate the difficulties of driving in such hot and humid conditions.
At the risk of repeating ourselves for the thirteenth time this season, it was the usual Friday, spent evaluating different aero configurations across the two cars, as well as taking a first look at the Medium Prime Pirelli and the Supersoft Option compound. Sebastian Vettel, the winner of the last two races here at Marina Bay, was quickest this afternoon, ahead of Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber. Third was Nico Rosberg, followed by his Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, who won here in 2009. Romain Grosjean was fifth in the Lotus, just ahead of Fernando in sixth, the only past winner of this race not mentioned so far, the Spaniard having been first past the flag in 2008 and 2010. As for Felipe, he was fifteenth fastest in the second session.
Reading too much into Friday’s times is a dangerous pastime, but both Ferrari men expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of their F138s. It was not entirely unexpected as the slower tracks which require the most downforce have not been particularly well suited to this year’s Prancing Horse car. However, while all race tracks evolve over the course of the weekend, as the surface rubbers in, that is even more the case at a street circuit that is more used to having trucks and taxis running up and down the roads, so the engineers will now be taking that into account as they evaluate all the data, covering all aspects of car performance from the tyres to the new updates, mainly aerodynamic, brought for this race. We usually talk about a long night ahead, but in this case, the work will finish as the sun begins to rise for the second day of track action at the Marina Drive night shift.
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