Team reaction after day one in Singapore (part 1)

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “The most important thing is to have a clean Friday and we had no problem with the car today. It was tricky in the first practice, as the circuit was still a bit damp from earlier rain, then in P2 it didn’t really dry up and some corners were like a sponge where you couldn’t get rid of the water. I think it could be interesting tomorrow or on Sunday if we get some rain. It doesn’t mean so much to be P1 today, as it’s only practice and there are no points available, but it’s still good to be on top and we have good pace. The weather may bring a surprise though.”

Mark Webber: “A pretty good first day, the first session was wet, but we got some good running this afternoon. I haven’t seen the times that closely yet, but I’m pretty happy with how today went. I need to work on my short run performance a bit, but overall it’s good. We knew nothing would change with our car before we came here; we’ve passed all the new FIA tests and we weren’t coming here expecting to be slower than we were in Budapest. Other people had their ideas how to improve their car and we have continued to improve our car too. Ferrari still look quick and anyone can be on pole tomorrow, us, Ferrari or McLaren, we just keep trying to do our best.”

McLaren Mercedes

Jenson Button: “We got some reasonable running during P2, and the car is working quite well. There are still some improvements we need to make, but I feel comfortable with it.

“We saw today that, after it rains, the track doesn’t dry very quickly, and a lot of water comes up through the circuit. It’s pretty tricky – it’s difficult to see which parts of the track are wet because of the glare. Hopefully, we won’t have any more rain this weekend, because wet conditions aren’t the nicest to drive in.

“Our long-run pace looks good, but it’s so tough around here on high fuel – we’ve never run this level of fuel around here before.

“Qualifying tomorrow will be all about finding track space – if you hit traffic, you’ve got to still keep pushing, especially in Q1, when the circuit will be at its busiest.”

Lewis Hamilton: “The track was very tricky today because there were wet patches in some areas, but it was quite a good session for us. We’re reasonably close; we’re competitive; there’s more time for us to find tomorrow; so I’m optimistic.

“In fact I think we’ll be able to compete with the guys who were at the front today. The Red Bulls definitely aren’t unbeatable here. Okay, they’re very quick in the second and third sectors, so we’ll have to work hard to try to make up time there, but I’m pretty confident we can do it.

“Finally, I think the changes made to the track have made it worse – and the chicane is now very tricky. You approach it at 170mph – and if something goes wrong, and you hit one of those kerbs, then you could have a nasty accident.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal: “This afternoon’s shower showed, for the first time, that this circuit is likely to be very challenging in the wet – the track doesn’t dry out very rapidly and, as we saw this evening, certain parts of the track don’t drain very efficiently. That meant some corners were still damp long after the rest of the track had dried. Coupled with the fact that visibility under the strip lighting makes it hard for the drivers to see where the circuit is drying, a race in wet conditions could be extremely challenging.

“While today’s lap-times suggest that our competitors may have an advantage, there’s still plenty of data to be combed through tonight. In particular, our long-run pace looks encouraging, so our aim for tomorrow is to ensure that our car’s speed over a single lap is optimised for what’s likely to be a rather tricky qualifying session.

“Initial analysis suggests that our upgrades have worked successfully, but we still need to look over the data in more detail in order to gain a greater understanding of our overall competitiveness ahead of tomorrow.”

Ferrari

It was rather a difficult day for Scuderia Ferrari under the artificial lights of Singapore’s Marina Bay circuit. The first free practice session took place on a track that was still wet from rain that fell in mid-afternoon, which made it something of a struggle to get through the planned programme, centred on evaluating different aerodynamic configurations on the F10. The second session saw Fernando Alonso’s car suffer a failure which meant he had to pull off into the escape road at turn 18, so he was unable to get through his work schedule.

Stefano Domenicali: “Despite today’s difficulties, we still managed to acquire sufficient data which our engineers can now use to decide on the car set-up for qualifying and the race. Friday’s times are always difficult to evaluate and today was no exception. From the little we could see, Red Bull look very strong, as indeed was to be expected, but we are on the pace. Having said that, clearly we will have to perform faultlessly if we want to achieve our objective, starting from tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Fernando Alonso: “I braked a bit late at turn 18 and ended up in the escape road: I selected reverse, but when I then selected first gear to get going again, the car stopped. It’s a shame, because I lost the final twenty minutes of the session, the part when I was due to run with a heavy fuel load. In the debrief, the engineers told me the problem was that an experimental part in the gearbox had broken. This can happen on a Friday, when you try a lot of things, some of them even aimed at next season. Our individual sector times don’t seem too bad, in fact you could say they were quite competitive, when compared to our main rivals. We tried the car with and without the blown rear wing and for me, the first option seems to be the best, but we must study the data carefully before taking a definite decision. The hard tyres proved to be consistent and the softs give more grip than expected. This morning, I did not do much running because the track was not dry enough for slick tyres, while the intermediates would have quickly been destroyed.”

Felipe Massa: “We did a lot of laps to try out different configurations on the car, especially comparing performance with and without the blown rear wing. I am not particularly pleased with the balance of the car and that is another reason why we spent a lot of time on track in the first session, even when track conditions were not ideal. Especially on the soft tyres, I had a bit too much oversteer. There is much work to do but I think we can be competitive all the same, even up against Red Bull who seem to be very strong. The track was very slippery when it was still damp, especially the kerbs and the part that was recently resurfaced. The hard tyres take a while to get up to temperature, which is not the case with the soft ones, although these probably suffer a bit more from degradation.”

Chris Dyer: “Rather a difficult day in terms of running the programme we had set out for the two free practice sessions. In the first one, the track conditions were neither fish nor fowl: the damp track meant you could not use the dry tyres without the risk of damaging them, but it was not wet enough to run properly on the intermediates. In the second session, we were unable to complete the planned programme on Fernando’s car, because an experimental component in the gearbox broke, which was discovered when he went off the track at turn 18: now we have to take a close look at the part to determine what caused the breakage. We tried various new aerodynamic solutions, also comparing the handling of the car with and without the blown rear wing: now it is up to the engineers, along with the drivers, to reach a decision tonight as to which is the best configuration for qualifying and the race. In terms of performance, the F10 seems to be reasonably competitive at this track, even if it is difficult to draw any definite conclusion, especially when you consider how the two sessions went. I think the battle between the top three teams is very tight and that we can fight for places at the front of the grid.”

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Even with the circuit being damp for the majority of the first practice session, we still had a productive day working on set-up and tyres. For both cars we had a new front wing assembly, and only on Rubens car for this race we had a new diffuser to evaluate –all of which are working as expected. Our pace looks reasonable, and qualifying will be about traffic management!

Rubens Barrichello: We’ve brought some new parts to the car this weekend, and they are working well, so the factory has done a good job. Today has been pretty good but there is work to be done tomorrow both in the car and out of it, but we should be up to the job here. In terms of the track, the surface is now much improved as it is far less bumpy, but the new surface can be quite slippery, especially in conditions like today when the rain was taking a long time to dry.

Nico Hulkenberg: It was a positive Friday and the car feels pretty good. We’ve got some new elements to the package and although we didn’t do back-to-back tests today because of the weather, it is pretty clear that they do what they are meant to. And the circuit, well it‘s just awesome, there’s no other word for it. After today I am a little far away from Rubens on the timesheets, but actually I am not if I put a good option run together. All told, I reckon we can have a good, strong weekend.

Mercedes GP

Practice for Formula One’s only night race began today under the floodlights of the Marina Bay Circuit in Singapore.

After a late afternoon rain shower, the track was declared wet for the start of the first session at 6pm. For his first experience of the Singapore circuit, Michael went out on the damp track for valuable track acclimatisation whilst Nico completed an installation lap and waited in the garage until dry tyres were possible with 15 minutes remaining.

The second session, starting at 9.30pm, was dry and enabled the team to work through the usual Friday programme.

Nico Rosberg: "The second session was good today although we weren’t able to learn so much in the first session. The track improved significantly during the later session so we were able to learn a few things and made some good set-up changes. Our long runs were ok but the main issue was that we didn’t get the grip that I was expecting from the soft tyre so that’s something that we need to look at overnight. All in all, it was a reasonable start to the weekend. "

Michael Schumacher: "It has been a lot of fun driving this track today, even in the dark. It is the first time driving here in Singapore for me and I was curious to experience how it would be and I have to say that I liked it. I had heard that the track is quite bumpy but I didn’t find that it was too much, just in one sector. The rest is pretty good and exciting. This morning, well actually early evening, when the conditions were mixed, we looked quite good whereas in the later second practice, we seemed to struggle more. Let’s see what we can do here tomorrow."

Ross Brawn: "As expected, we faced some weather-related challenges today but the first session proved very useful for Michael as he was quickly able to learn the circuit with good running in the damp conditions. The second session proved more useful from an engineering perspective as we could work through our normal Friday programme. We are reasonably happy with our progress so far but there is still a lot of work to be done before tomorrow."

Norbert Haug: "A beautiful venue here in Singapore with a great atmosphere and first-class television images for the spectators worldwide. Although it is only our third visit here, this is already a great Grand Prix and one of the most remarkable races on the calendar. On the track, we ran our usual Friday programme and we still have some work to complete tomorrow. Our target on Sunday is to continue scoring points with both cars as we achieved in the last couple of races. Whilst we are not expecting miracles in the last five races, everybody will give their utmost to get the best possible results."

Renault

Robert Kubica: It was a more difficult Friday than usual because we had a problem with the hydraulics during the second session, when the track was at its best, so I only completed about five clean laps today. That makes it very difficult to say where we stand relative to the competition. The track conditions were changing a lot throughout the day, too, and it was clear to see that the new sections of tarmac took a long time to dry up.

Vitaly Petrov: Today was a learning day for me and it was made even more complicated by the fact that the circuit was wet this morning. I worked hard on adapting my style to suit this circuit and the car, and we started looking at the set-up during the second session. It is hard to find a comfortable balance here but if we can continue in the same direction overnight, I don’t think it will be too bad. I made a mistake on my quickest lap so I know there is more performance to come, and my target will be to get into the top ten tomorrow.

Technical Debrief with Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer

What were conditions like today?

It was pretty wet during the first session so while Vitaly spent some time learning the circuit and achieving as much as he could in the conditions, with Robert we focused on checking f-duct settings and making sure the car was working okay. We chose to run Vitaly without the f-duct in the FP1, just to make his life as simple as possible for his first practice session at this circuit.

The cars seemed quite a long way down the timesheets today. Is that a worry?

Robert lost most of the second session with a hydraulic leak, and wasn’t able to run a new set of soft tyres to set a time - he only went out for a couple of laps at the end just to check the car. As for Vitaly, he’s still learning the circuit and finding his optimum braking points, so we know there’s a lot more time to come from him. It doesn’t look fantastic on the timesheets today, but I’m confident we’ll be in our normal place tomorrow.

The circuit has been resurfaced in places today. Has that made a big difference?

The drivers haven’t been complaining about the bumps at all today. We know that our car rides them reasonably well, but they don’t appear to be the issue that they have been for the last two years.

Do today’s disruptions change your plans for tomorrow?

Not really. Our limited data from today indicates that the softer compound will be the quicker qualifying tyre, so we will simply try to run our normal programme, have a trouble-free session with both cars, and prepare thoroughly for qualifying.