Mercedes driver ahead of twin Red Bulls in straightforward opening session at Marina Bay.
A straightforward opening practice session at Singapore’s Marina Bay circuit ended with Lewis Hamilton at the top of the timesheet, ahead of the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and third-placed Sebastian Vettel.
Hamilton’s best time of 1:47.055 came with two thirds of the session gone and, with little or no improvements coming from the bulk of the front runners in the final half an hour, he finished comfortably ahead of Webber, nearly four tenths back, and eight tenths clear of championship leader Vettel. Nico Rosberg was fourth in the second Mercedes.
The session got off to a cautious start as, after installation laps, most of the field opted to remain in their garages, waiting for the backmarkers to do the job of cleaning up the dirt and laying down some rubber on the grip-free circuit.
In the end, it wasn’t a back marker that broke the silence but McLaren’s Sergio Perez, and when the Mexican logged the first time lap of 1:53.245 after half an hour, it sparked movement up and down pitlane.
Except, that is, in the half of the Lotus garage occupied by Romain Grosjean. After a single installation lap the Frenchman’s car was pushed back into the garage where his team spent much of the session working on the front end of his Lotus.
He finally emerged with 25 minutes to go and quickly worked his way up to sixth place on the time sheet, just one thousandth of a second behind team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
At the end of an incident-free session, the top ten was completed by Fernando Alonso in seventh place for Ferrari, with Perez eighth, Jean-Eric Vergne in ninth position and Esteban Gutierrez in tenth for Sauber.
Singapore Grand Prix 2013 – Free Practice 1 result
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:47.0552 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:47.420 +0.3653 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:47.885 +0.8304 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:48.239 +1.1845 Kimi Räikkönen Lotus 1:48.354 +1.2996 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:48.355 +1.3007 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:48.362 +1.3078 Sergio Pérez McLaren 1:49.267 +2.2129 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:49.348 +2.29310 Esteban Gutiérrez Sauber 1:49.355 +2.30011 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:49.481 +2.42612 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:49.493 +2.43813 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:49.510 +2.45514 Jenson Button McLaren 1:49.608 +2.55315 Paul di Resta Force India 1:49.887 +2.83216 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:50.092 +3.03717 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber 1:50.222 +3.16718 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:50.757 +3.70219 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:52.359 +5.30420 Max Chilton Marussia 1:52.673 +5.61821 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:52.920 +5.86522 Charles Pic Caterham 1:53.647 +6.592
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