Sebastian Vettel topped the Friday evening timesheets in Singapore to close out practice sessions that confirmed Red Bull Racing is back on the F1 championship pace after disappointing recent results.
Title-contending Vettel missed out on the opening half of the first session, though this time the German insisted that the watching brief was less to do with his dwindling supply of engines and more about a lack of necessity in running in the daylight that still persisted during the opening segment of the first practice session on the street course.
But when the sun disappeared over the horizon and the Red Bull driver did take to the track, it wasn’t long before he was demonstrating that the upgrades brought to Singapore were bearing fruit.
Fifth in the opening session, behind the Brawns, the Renault of Fernando Alonso and team-mate Mark Webber showed that despite the tough layout and soaring temperatures, the order established in the early part of the season was beginning to reassert itself.
In session two, Vettel then managed to sidestep the heavy traffic through the tight corners of the streetscape to bang in the evening’s quickest lap, the German beating Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen and fourth-placed Nick Heidfeld for the top spot.
“Overall, it was a good day for us and we look better here than we did in Monza.”
Vettel, though, confessed afterwards that he would have liked to have found more speed as the track revisions from last year are slowing the cars down.
“We can see from the times that the track is a little bit slower than it was last year, which is a shame because some of the faster corners are now not so quick, but overall the character has remained the same,” he said. “It’s a challenging track – quite stop and go – you don’t experience as much G-force here as on other circuits, but there are a lot of bumps, which don’t make your life easy, but I like the circuit a lot. Overall, it was a good day for us and we look better here than we did in Monza.”
Vettel will now hope his fortunate timing in the second session can be repeated in qualifying, where, with traffic a constant headache, finding space for a clean run could mean the difference between grid glory or midfield minefield on race day.
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