Hamilton quickest but rivals’ true pace is concealed

Lewis Hamilton may have been the quickest driver around the streets of Singapore on Friday, but this was very much a case of the lap times not telling the whole story.

To begin with, Hamilton didn’t actually set the quickest time through any of the three sectors which comprise the Marina Bay street circuit. Fernando Alonso, for example, was three-tenths quicker through the middle of the lap, and his combined best sector times were fractionally quicker than Hamilton’s.

But Ferrari have flattered to deceive on Fridays before. And as always Hamilton’s biggest rival is found within his own team. Nico Rosberg looked the quicker of the two in the second session but had to abort his run on the faster super-soft tyres due to the red flag caused by Pastor Maldonado.

With the tyres offering a huge lap time boost of around 2.5 seconds per lap, but surrendering that pace very quickly, Rosberg was never going to be able to bounce back from that. But before the session was stopped he set fastest time through sector one.

Hamilton suspected he might have gone in the wrong direction on set-up after the first session. “We made some changes between P1 and P2,” he said, “and whether it was those changes or the track itself, the balance didn’t feel right. It felt like we lost a bit of performance.”

Hamilton is especially keen to secure pole position on a track where overtaking is difficult. “Pole here has always been very important. The right side of the grid, for example, always seems to get the better starts.”

The Red Bulls, too, showed decent pace on Friday. Sebastian Vettel’s progress was badly disrupted by an engine failure which meant he only managed five laps in the second session. He was most likely running with more fuel on board than several of his closest rivals when he set his best time, and is one to keep an eye on in qualifying.

Team mate Daniel Ricciardo, however, is doubtful they will be able to get on terms with Hamilton and Rosberg. “I’ve got a feeling Mercedes probably have a bit more in the bag,” he said.

“I saw Hamilton is about three tenths up the road and Rosberg was improving and then he caught the red flag so I don’t know, I think they’ve got a bit more in the tank.”

After a couple of very difficult races Lotus look on course for a better weekend – Maldonado’s crash notwithstanding. “The car performed well today,” Romain Grosjean agreed, “better than previous races which is something we expected to happen, but nevertheless is good when it goes the way that has been predicted”.

Grosjean said the car suits the high downforce level required at Singapore – which of course also negates their Renault engine’s straight-line speed deficit. He added some of the team’s latest upgrades “worked really well”.

On the flip-side of that one team who expected to have a difficult weekend in Singapore are finding it more of a challenge than they expected: Williams. “It was a very difficult day,” Felipe Massa admitted.

“We were struggling a lot to balance the car and we need to resolve this tonight otherwise it will be a tough weekend for us. We saw some improvement between FP1 and FP2, but we need to find more gains in FP3 if we are to have a qualifying that would satisfy us.”

One of the major theme’s of today’s track action was what effect the new restrictions on team radio would have. In Jenson Button’s view “the situation has ended up without much being taken away”.

“They’ve stopped the engineers from coaching the drivers, but I’ve never been coached around a lap to go quicker, so not much has changed for me personally.”

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint:

Sector times and ultimate lap times – second practice

Speed trap – second practice

Complete practice times

2014 Singapore Grand Prix

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• Hamilton beats Vergne to Driver of the Weekend
• Singapore GP falls short of high 2014 standard
• “Contamination” caused Rosberg’s Singapore failure
• 2014 Singapore Grand Prix fans’ video gallery