As usual, there was plenty of track evolution at the unique Singapore street circuit, with the drivers tackling the FP1 session in daylight before moving onto the cooler and more representative conditions of FP2 at night.

All three compounds were sampled, including the P Zero Pink hypersoft, which set the fastest time in the hands of Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen. The Friday benchmark he established was 0.8 seconds faster than the pole time last year, with plenty of improvement still expected to come at the 23-corner circuit. In FP1, the teams mostly used all three compounds, while in FP2 the work mainly concentrated on the hypersoft and ultrasoft.

So far, the hypersoft is 1.6 seconds per lap faster than the ultrasoft, with a total difference of roughly 2.4 seconds from hypersoft to soft: for the first time, there’s a ‘step’ in the Singapore nominations. The performance gap is likely to mean that all the drivers qualify on the hypersoft tomorrow, with the entire top 10 set to start on this compound.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“This is probably the session where there’s the greatest contrast between FP1 and FP2 of the entire year, and that was reflected in the times. Obviously FP2, with the asphalt temperature 15 degrees lower, was much more representative and this is when the most useful tyre assessment took place with different compounds and fuel loads. However, the picture is still not entirely conclusive, as the track continues to evolve rapidly. In particular, the teams were all able to take a first look at the hypersoft, which is performing in line with expectations here and has already set the track record in FP2. So far, we’ve seen high degradation on the hypersoft – especially at the rear – while the ultrasoft has been very consistent.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME      COMPOUND
Ricciardo 	1m39.711s HYPERSOFT NEW
Verstappen	1m39.912s HYPERSOFT NEW
Vettel 		1m39.997s HYPERSOFT NEW

FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND 
Raikkonen 	1m38.699s HYPERSOFT NEW
Hamilton	1m38.710s HYPERSOFT NEW
Verstappen 	1m39.221s HYPERSOFT NEW

FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER    TIME
SOFT 		Hamilton  1m41.232s
ULTRASOFT	Hamilton  1m42.072s
HYPERSOFT 	Ricciardo 1m39.711s

FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER    TIME
SOFT 		Alonso    1m42.335s
ULTRASOFT	Raikkonen 1m40.510s
HYPERSOFT 	Raikkonen 1m38.699s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	  LAPS
SOFT 		Alonso    25
ULTRASOFT	Hartley   28
HYPERSOFT 	Gasly     23

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
		     SOFT	ULTRASOFT   HYPERSOFT
Kms driven* 	     1253 	1988 	    2267
Sets used overall**  17		29	    34

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.