Vettel pulls clear in final Singapore F1 practice

Sebastian Vettel bounced back from his brush with the wall on Friday to set the fastest time in final practice for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday evening, pulling clear of Formula 1 title rival Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel lost the majority of his FP2 running after touching the wall on exit at Turn 21 on his qualifying simulation lap, leaving the Ferrari driver on the back foot heading into the remainder of the race weekend.

Despite yesterday’s error, Vettel immediately ran close to the same wall during his first flying lap of the session, showing full commitment as he set the early pace on the Hypersoft tyre.

Vettel was able to improve by two seconds with a later time on Hypersofts, eventually finishing the session three-tenths of a second clear of the field with a best lap of 1m38.054s.

Vettel headed up a one-two finish for Ferrari as teammate Kimi Raikkonen took second place, leaving Hamilton to settle for third place in the lead Mercedes car.

Hamilton lost the majority of his time to Vettel in the first sector of the lap, eventually finishing half a second adrift. Teammate Valtteri Bottas finished four-hundredths of a second further back in P4.

Red Bull finished more than one second off the pace as Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen ended FP3 in P5 and P6 respectively. Verstappen spent the early part of the session in the garage, and reported a recurring engine braking issue when he finally got out on-track, complaining that the “product in the back of this car is not working the way I want it to.”

Romain Grosjean was the leading midfield driver in P7 for Haas ahead of the Force India pair of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, while Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10 positions for McLaren.

Nico Hulkenberg rose to 11th late on ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz Jr., while Pierre Gasly took 14th for Toro Rosso, finishing almost one second clear of teammate Brendon Hartley down in P17.

Stoffel Vandoorne was another driver who failed to match his teammate’s pace, finishing half a second slower than Alonso in the second McLaren to end FP3 P15. Charles Leclerc was the lead Sauber in 16th ahead of Hartley and Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin, while Marcus Ericsson and Lance Stroll propped up the running order.