The Sunday Mail
SEBASTIAN VETTEL believes Red Bull could threaten Mercedes in today’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Vettel said Red Bull’s pace in practice indicated they could interfere in the title fight between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Vettel said: “I think we are closer than at previous races. We’re here to fight and we have a good car this weekend. “
Hamilton trails Rosberg by 22 points and admits the battle is “intense”.
He won the last race in Monza after pressuring the German into two errors while leading.
Hamilton and Rosberg appeared closely matched throughout Friday practice as they embark on the latest chapter of their tight battle for the world championship at one of F1’s most dramatic venues. The Marina Bay track provides them with arguably the toughest challenge of the entire season, with a long, bumpy track and a race that runs almost to the maximum two-hour duration in hot and humid conditions under lights at night.
Hamilton said: “The circuit is so demanding and if you lose track time it’s very hard to get it back, so to get through Friday with no problems is very good.”
The tight nature of the track means that Mercedes’ power advantage over Red Bull’s Renault engine and the Ferrari makes less of a difference to overall performance, theoretically bringing the cars closer together.
But Rosberg said he was optimistic Mercedes, who have dominated the season when they have not run into problems, would be able to stay clear of Red Bull and Ferrari in qualifying and the race.
“We’ve seen now in the last couple of races that Fridays are always closer so I’m hoping it’s going to be the case this weekend and we will edge away a little bit,” Rosberg said.
Vettel had a troubled Friday, missing all but 10 minutes of the second session because his engine needed to be changed following a failure at the end of first practice.
But on his single run he set fifth fastest time, only 0.551secs slower than pace-setter Hamilton, who was 0.133secs clear of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and 0.3secs quicker than Vettel’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. — BBC
