Practice report
Singapore GP: Top 10 quotes after FP2
The fastest time in free practice today was set by Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg with a benchmark of 1m44.152s in FP2 on the ultrasoft tyre.
Photo by: XPB Images
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Nico Rosberg |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 34 | 1'44.152 | ||
| "It's been a solid start to the weekend. Definitely better than last year. The first session was going okay until I hit the wall at Turn 18. That wasn't ideal - but luckily the impact wasn't too heavy, so I managed to get the car back to the pits and the guys had it ready in time for FP2. The second session felt better but we still have some room for improvement. It's really close between ourselves, Red Bull and Ferrari - much closer than at some other tracks for sure - so it looks like a big battle ahead. I'm looking forward to it." | |||||||
| 2 |  Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 34 | 1'44.427 | 0.275 | 0.275 |
| "The first practice session was tricky, I struggled a little bit, but the second practice was good: everything worked and the car was handling pretty well. Here in Singapore, if you get the car right, it's a lot easier to go faster. Today we had quite a good feeling, but for sure there is still something to improve. It's hard to say if we can be strong, it's only Friday, but the feeling was positive. So far so good, but tomorrow is another day, we'll see where everybody is and then we'll go from there. We'll give our best and hopefully we have the speed to challenge our rivals." | |||||||
| 3 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | TAG | 29 | 1'44.532 | 0.380 | 0.105 |
| “It was a positive day for us and we can be happy with the balance of the car. For FP2 we weren’t fully there but we know what areas we need to work on and improve. But the car felt good, we are more or less there and we had a good start to the weekend. The tyres worked really well as well, I was happy with the ultrasofts, there was quite a difference between them and the supersofts. I think it will be an interesting battle between us, Mercedes and Ferrari, and I’m looking forward to it.” | |||||||
| 4 |  Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull | TAG | 26 | 1'44.557 | 0.405 | 0.025 |
| “This circuit is always difficult. You’re pushing the limit on a street circuit and you want to be comfortable in qualifying so today is the day to experiment. I had a bit of a spin and touched the barrier but the car was more or less okay. It’s hot, it’s tricky and everything is a little bit on the edge here for sure, but to find a few tenths on this circuit can be quite easy, because there are so many corners and with the tyres overheating in the last sector you can lose or gain a lot. We still feel that we can get a little bit more speed out of the car so that’s what tonight is for. Even if we find a few small things, then they will hopefully add up to quite a bit of lap time here tomorrow.” | |||||||
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 33 | 1'45.161 | 1.009 | 0.604 |
| "Overall we had two decent sessions. In the second one I was not entirely happy, I was struggling a little bit with the car balance, and therefore not really finding the rhythm but in general it has been a good day. It is very difficult to pass here, obviously we'll try to trim everything towards qualifying. Now we have a lot of stuff to look into, before tomorrow comes: there will be another session and the opportunity to do a few more laps. If we get everything right we have a good chance tomorrow to position the car well." | |||||||
| 6 | Nico Hulkenberg |
Force India | Mercedes | 35 | 1'45.182 | 1.030 | 0.021 |
| “It’s a good starting point for our weekend: we stuck to our plan, completed all our runs and got plenty of learning out of the laps we did. There’s still some work to do to be fully happy with the car, but we looked quite competitive. We are still trying to understand where we stand in terms of long run pace, but the first impression is that our one-lap pace looks good. Most teams usually take a big step forward between Friday and Saturday, so we are not getting carried away. We’ve done some good preparation work ahead of the race, which means tomorrow morning we can move on and switch our focus to qualifying.” | |||||||
| 7 |  Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 10 | 1'45.275 | 1.123 | 0.093 |
| "Two relatively good sessions today. Running the halo was no real issue. I barely noticed it, to be honest - just in my mirrors, where it blocked the view slightly. We had a small hydraulic issue at the end of FP2 but it doesn't look like anything serious. The guys are working on it and it should be fine for tomorrow, which is the main thing. Our pace looked okay today. Definitely much better than last year so I'd say we're looking relatively strong." | |||||||
| 8 |  Carlos Sainz Jr. |
Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 33 | 1'45.507 | 1.355 | 0.232 |
| “I think we can be happy with today. For the last three races we had been struggling a bit on Friday, finding it hard to classify further than P15 or P16… So it was good to be back in the top ten today in both practice sessions. Of course, we will push to do the same tomorrow, we’re strong here and it motivates the team to move forward – the car works well and we will go through plenty of data tonight in order to be ready for the rest of the weekend – I look forward to it, I enjoy racing at this track!” | |||||||
| 9 | Fernando Alonso |
McLaren | Honda | 30 | 1'45.779 | 1.627 | 0.272 |
| “Our expectations were quite high before coming here – although, to be fair, I’d said beforehand that there are circuits coming up that should suit us better than Singapore. We’ll have to fight to get into Q3 tomorrow because I think Force India and Toro Rosso both look pretty strong around here. Hopefully we can find a couple of tenths overnight so as to battle them for the final three or four top-10 positions in qualifying though. Our biggest problem is an overall deficit of grip – we need to find a bit more downforce for tomorrow, and then we need to make the tyres work better over a single lap. We’ll work hard to do our best to achieve those two important goals. It’s not so easy to overtake around here, so a good grid position will be important.” | |||||||
| 10 |  Daniil Kvyat |
Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 35 | 1'46.029 | 1.877 | 0.250 |
| “We tried many things today and I think it was a stimulating Friday. We will now try and learn as much as we can for tomorrow and try to maximize the potential which I feel we’ve got here – I think we can be strong and I’m happy to see that we are looking more competitive than in previous races. Obviously we need to keep working hard, but I’m ready for it!” | |||||||
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