Alonso sets the pace in FP1 at Singapore

Alonso sets the pace in FP1 at Singapore

This morning we saw Ferrari setting the pace in opening practice at the Singapore Grand Prix, with Fernando Alonso fastest ahead of the two Mercedes drivers of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

With the drivers adjusting to the new rules prohibiting certain types of radio messages which have been revised by the FIA after teams raised concerns yesterday, this now means that messages explicitly concerning driver performance are now forbidden.

Radio traffic pertaining to car performance will now be allowed until the end of the season, but even though that compromise gives teams, drivers and the governing body rather less of a headache; it wasn’t all plain-sailing.

Throughout the session, we saw Nico Rosberg's race engineer Tony Ross stating that 'You’re 1.2 seconds faster, Nico' when he was told after he moved top of the times about half-an-hour into the session. Rosberg replied back to Ross, 'I don’t want to know, thank you' and it was the correct response.

Rosberg might have got it right but Jean-Eric Vergne found it more difficult to shake off old habits by asking his engineer during the session, 'Is anyone improving after the first timed lap?' The response Vergne got from his engineer was 'Just keep pushing.'

But it was Alonso who was fastest of all, on a track he hopes will put Ferrari back in the mix after a difficult home race at Monza two weeks ago. Alonso was fastest with a lap time of 1.49.054 and was 0.122 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton who finished the session in second place and Hamilton's team mate Nico Rosberg who finished in third place 0.149 seconds behind Alonso. Also, Rosberg during the session had to disregard his wing mirror after it came off his car.

Sebastian Vettel finished the session in fourth place ahead of his team mate Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place. It was announced before the start of FP1 that Vettel has a new chassis for this weekend and is dangerously close to receiving a grid-place penalty if anything else has to be changed on his car.

However, at the end of the session, Vettel had to stop his Red Bull RB10 due to suspected problems with his engine and leaving his team with little to no time to fix the problem before the start of FP2 in just under two hours time and seems to be edging ever closer to receiving a penalty.

Jean-Eric Vergne despite asking his engineer for help during the session and also was suffering with brake problems towards the final ten minutes of the session, finished in sixth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in seventh place whose brakes went on fire at one point during the session, Jenson Button in eighth place, Daniil Kvyat in ninth and Sergio Perez who rounded off the top 10 finishers of the session.

Kevin Magnussen finished the session in eleventh place ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in twelfth place, Felipe Massa in thirteenth place and Pastor Maldonado in fourteenth place. Valtteri Bottas claimed fifteenth place in the session ahead of Esteban Guiterrez in sixteenth place who after experiencing problems on the ERS systems of his Sauber C33 managed to get some running on the track in the latter stages of the session.

Adrian Sutil finished in seventeenth place ahead of Romain Grosjean in eighteenth place who had experienced a lock up heading into Turn 14 and was able to continue. As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Jules Bianchi finished the session in nineteenth place ahead of Marcus Ericsson in twentieth who out performed his team mate Kamui Kobayashi for twenty-first and Max Chilton who finished the session in twenty-second place.

The classification of FP1 at the Singapore Grand Prix is as follows below

Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.49.054
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.122s
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 0.149s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 0.818s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1.066s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1.483s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1.727s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1.866s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1.934s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 2.075s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 2.161s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 2.548s
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 2.897s
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 3.069s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 3.090s
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 3.115s
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 3.181s
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 3.850s
Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 5.057s
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 5.419s
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 5.551s
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 6.114s