Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in Friday practice for the Singapore Grand Prix by using Bridgestone’s soft compound Potenza tyre to set Friday’s fastest lap time at the 5.07km Marina Bay Street Circuit, as Formula One cars ran at night for the first time at the 15th round of the championship.

Hamilton set his time – a 1:45.518secs – in the first of the two 90-minute practice sessions, both of which took place after sunset and under artificial lights. In the later practice session, Renault driver Fernando Alonso set the quickest time, using the super-soft compound to set a time of 1:45.654s.

Hirohide Hamashima, Tyre Development Director“The Marina Bay Street Circuit is certainly an interesting and challenging track for Bridgestone and all the competitors on our tyres. This evening the circuit started very dirty, as we would expect from a new facility, especially a street course.  The grip level from the track improved rapidly through the first session, however, the fastest time seen today was some way off our predictions."

"Normally we would see an improvement in lap times in the second session and from the softer compound tyre but we did not see this today. This is perhaps because there is still not sufficient rubber laid down on the track and also due to team strategies in the session as they learnt this new track. The soft tyre worked well with conditions as they were today."

"We have a lot of data to analyse and tomorrow’s running should give us a better idea of what to expect in Sunday’s race.”