|
After the two
most diverse practice sessions of the year, which started off in twilight
but ended in full darkness, Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel set the
quickest lap of the Singapore circuit so far this weekend with a lap of
1m46.374s in the second free practice session. Vettel beat his own fastest
lap in free practice last year of 1m46.660s.
The German – who has a chance of becoming the youngest-ever double world
champion this weekend – used Pirelli’s P Zero Red supersoft tyre to set his
fastest time, which has been specifically developed to provide peak
performance on tight and twisty street circuits such as Singapore. Despite
ambient temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade or more, both the P Zero Red
supersoft and the P Zero Yellow soft performed faultlessly in the hot and
humid conditions. As well as targeting outright times, the drivers focussed
on the performance of the tyres over long runs, accumulating vital data for
the race.
The opening session, scheduled between 1800-1930 hrs, was shortened to an
hour after it got away half an hour late due to track repairs. McLaren’s
Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the session with a time of 1m48.599s, set in
the closing minutes with the P Zero Yellow tyre, which was used by all the
drivers in FP1.
The second session, held from 2130-2300 hrs, enabled teams to fine-tune the
car set-up to the unique demands of Singapore, which provides a huge
challenge for the cars, tyres and drivers. With 23 corners, the rear tyres
are worked particularly hard as they constantly have to find traction on the
bumpy surfaces. The tight confines of the track also caught out several
drivers today. A problem for Jenson Button halfway through the second
session meant that the Englishman was the only driver who did not get a
chance to run on the P Zero Red supersoft so far.
All the drivers were allocated the usual three sets of tyres for Friday’s
free practice (two of P Zero Yellow and one set of P Zero Red). On average
they completed between 10 to 12 laps using the soft tyre in the first
session, and then 16 laps each on the soft and supersoft tyre in the second
session, practising pit stops as they changed sets.
Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery commented: “This was one of the
most important free practice sessions of the year for the teams, and the
number of people encountering problems showed just how tough it was.
Singapore is an extremely demanding track, so it was vital for the teams to
assess the correct set-up, particularly on full fuel tanks, as this is a
circuit that is particularly heavy on fuel consumption. Naturally, a heavy
car works its tyres harder, but despite this factor and the warm conditions,
we’ve been very pleased with the performance and durability of both our P
Zero compounds. We’ve seen a difference of about a second per lap between
the two compounds but with all the teams trying out different fuel loads,
it’s hard to get an exact picture until we’ve examined all the data.”
PIRELLI FACT OF THE DAY
Singapore has the biggest pit stop time loss of the year due to the length
and layout of the pit lane. It will take teams more than 30 seconds to come
in and out for a typical tyre change, which is going to have a significant
effect on pit stop strategy. |
