Singapore GP: Williams outside top ten in FP1

The opening ninety minute Friday practice session for the 2014 Singapore Grand Prix would see Williams Martini driver Valtteri Bottas come out first for his installation followed shortly after by team-mate Felipe Massa. After the opening series of timed laps Felipe would be leading Valtteri with the pair seventh and eighth. This weekend would see the teams having to cope with new limits on their pit-to-car radio communications. Pirelli had brought their soft and super-soft tyres for this race weekend. Again the teams would have the use of an extra set of prime tyres for the first thirty minutes.

But as the session progressed Felipe and Valtteri would drop down the order with Felipe finishing in thirteenth and Valtteri fifteenth. As per usual the Williams team had worked through their programme with the team looking at new aero components. With the end of the session it would be Alonso fastest from Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Ricciardo, Vergne, Raikkonen, Button, Kvyat, and Perez tenth. During the session we would see several incidents including Raikkonen having his right front brake catch fire as he sat in the pit lane. His mechanics would quickly put out the fire. Also Vettel would suffer an engine related issue right at the e3nd of the session which will require a change which may delay his start of the second Friday session. At the end of the session the Williams team would complete their usual practice pit stops.

Even though this track was now one where it was expected that the Williams cars would perform well both Williams drivers would finish around three seconds off the pace, which is a big margin. But it is early days and a more representative times may be seen in the second Friday session.

Pos Driver           	Team		       	Time     Laps
1 Fernando Alonso 	Ferrari 	   	1m49.056s 
2 Lewis Hamilton 	Mercedes 	   	1m49.178s 23 
3 Nico Rosberg 		Mercedes 	   	1m49.205s 24 
4 Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault   	1m49.874s 27 
5 Daniel Ricciardo 	Red Bull-Renault   	1m50.122s 21 
6 Jean-Eric Vergne 	Toro Rosso-Renault 	1m50.539s 11 
7 Kimi Raikkonen 	Ferrari 	   	1m50.783s 19 
8 Jenson Button 	McLaren-Mercedes    	1m50.922s 21 
9 Daniil Kvyat 		Toro Rosso-Renault 	1m50.990s 26 
10 Sergio Perez 	Force India-Mercedes 	1m51.131s 23 
11 Kevin Magnussen 	McLaren-Mercedes 	1m51.217s 24 
12 Nico Hulkenberg 	Force India-Mercedes 	1m51.604s 23 
13 Felipe Massa 	Williams-Mercedes 	1m51.953s 20 
14 Pastor Maldonado 	Lotus-Renault 		1m52.125s 25 
15 Valtteri Bottas 	Williams-Mercedes 	1m52.146s 19 
16 Esteban Gutierrez 	Sauber-Ferrari 		1m52.171s 15 
17 Adrian Sutil 	Sauber-Ferrari 		1m52.237s 22
18 Romain Grosjean 	Lotus-Renault 		1m52.906s 26
19 Jules Bianchi 	Marussia-Ferrari 	1m54.113s 15
20 Marcus Ericsson 	Caterham-Renault 	1m54.475s 26
21 Kamui Kobayashi 	Caterham-Renault 	1m54.607s 21
22 Max Chilton 		Marussia-Ferrari 	1m55.170s 17