Hamilton fastest in disrupted opening practice

The Singapore Grand Prix action kicked off with a thirty-minute delay as some temporary curbing needed to be removed at Turns 3, 7 and 14. Race control subsequently announced the session would be shortened to sixty-minutes instead of ninety-minutes.

All the cars filtered out of the pitlane as the track was finally opened and it was business as usual for the teams with the customary installation laps.

It wasn’t long before Mercedes set the ball rolling. The German team’s drivers were the first to come back out and embark on a proper run. Michael Schumacher set the early benchmark as more drivers left the pits.

Lap times improved but remained quite far off last year’s pace as the track was still green and dirty at this stage. Massa set the pace in the fading light of evening while Mark Webber had a close encounter with Glock’s Virgin. The Australian damaged his Red Bull’s front wing in the process and the German picked up a rear left puncture.

As both of them were slowly making their way back in the pits, Heikki Kovalainen parked his Lotus in at Turn 18 with burning front brakes. He diligently helped the marshals to push his car in the run-off area.

The session was red-flagged for Webber’s front wing debris to be cleared. It was quickly done and only a couple of minutes were lost. Massa was then leading from Webber and Vettel. Alonso and the McLaren drivers were yet to post a time.

Vettel was shuffled down the order as several drivers improved. Button, in the meantime, went top of the list. Vettel then had a clean run and demoted the Briton to 2nd fastest.

Night had now fallen on Singapore and the usual suspects were up at the front. With 13 minutes left, Vettel was leading from his teammate Webber. Button was third, Hamilton fourth and Massa fifth.

Hamilton briefly took over at the front but Vettel was already on a hot lap and quickly reclaimed the top honors. The McLaren driver was not undone yet and upped the pace to better his rival’s mark. Shortly afterwards, the session was red-flagged again as the final piece of kerbing at the exit of Turn 7 had come adrift.

Track workers immediately appeared to fix it but the clock was still ticking. They eventually decided to simply remove the loose piece. The teams only had three minutes left when the session resumed.

Most of the drivers came out for a final short run. Hamilton didn’t complete a flying lap but held on to first position as Vettel was unable to challenge his benchmark. Webber was third fastest with Alonso fourth and Button fifth.

Massa, Sutil, Schumacher, di Resta and Rosberg completed the top ten.