Lewis Hamilton laid down an early marker that he will be the man to beat in the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend when he set the fastest time in the second free practice session at the floodlit Marina Bay Street Circuit on Friday.
The Briton, who trails Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg by 22 points with six rounds remaining, clocked one minute 47.490 seconds to edge out the resurgent Ferrari of Fernando Alonso by 0.133 seconds around the 23-turn, 5.065km track.
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo crossed the line in a time of 1:47.790 to claim the third fastest time of the day, with the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen edging out quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel to round out the top five.
Vettel, who has dominated this race for the last three years, had his track time compromised after an engine failure at the end of first free practice restricted the German to just eight minutes of action at the end of the second session.
Championship leader Rosberg was unable to set a quick time in the second session after Pastor Maldonado crashed his Lotus into the Turn 10 wall, forcing a brief halt to proceedings just as the German was about to embark on his flying lap.
He eventually finished down in 13th but will look back at his third place in the first 90-minute session of the day as a more reliable marker to his speed and form ahead of the weekend.
“I didn’t like my car at that point but its always important to get in that lap to know what the car is doing so I can adapt my car with the engineers tonight and improve for tomorrow,” Rosberg told reporters.
“I didn’t get the second part of the lap because of the red flag which is a pity, it would have been important to do that but anyway it’s not a big deal. I got some long run laps in so it’s ok.”
Hamilton will be happy to have carried the momentum from his victory in the last round at Monza forward to Singapore, but Alonso had reason to feel delighted after a productive day helped lift the gloom around his struggling team.
The Spaniard started the day on a positive note by clocking the fastest time in first free practice when all the drivers used the soft ‘prime’ tyres, which were around one-and-a-half seconds a lap slower than the supersoft ‘option’ tyres used in the later session.
The Italian giants have endured a miserable campaign to date and are without a win since last year, having changed principal mid-season and witnessed the resignation of long-time chairman Luca di Montezemolo shortly after their home race at Monza earlier this month.
However, double world champion Alonso roared to a best time of one minute 49.056 seconds around a circuit where the Spaniard has won twice before - in 2008 and 2010.
Hamilton (1:49.178) and Rosberg, a further 0.027 seconds back, were second and third respectively on the timesheets with the Briton later saying he was satisfied with his day’s work.
“I feel good but Nico’s really quick as well, the Red Bulls we don’t know where they’ll be and also Ferrari are quite quick. We’re just going to focus on our job,” Hamilton said.
Alonso is looking to help Ferrari back to third place in the constructors’ championship after he suffered a first retirement of the season in Italy and saw the team slip to fourth behind the resurgent Williams team.
There was a more relaxed mood in the paddock after Formula One earlier announced a softening of a planned clampdown on radio race assistance due to be brought in for this race.
"Messages concerning a driver's own performance will not be allowed, but the expected ban on those relating to car performance will now be postponed until 2015 to give teams more time to prepare," the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement.
