Singapore GP: Free Practice and Qualifying Report
motorsport-live.com October 14th, 2017
It is autumn in Europe, and so the battle for the World Championship moved to Asia and into the streets of Singapore where last year,
Zoe Sharp of the
Panther Race Group won her first Grand Prix, starting from fourth.
At that point,
Harry Chapman had a 71 point lead in the WDC. This year, he is level on points with
Dieter Wexler, and all eyes will be on this fight. And nobody can afford a mistake here in the tricky streets and in the possible rain as
Harry Chapman found out when he shunted his car in the last race and blew his lead in the points table.
And while rain interrupted free practice programs in the second half, one thing could be said. Running on the supersoft tyre, the
Rossini ace
Dieter Wexler(1:20.042) led the way, but by a fraction of +0.066 over
Holtz and +0.125 over
Chapman... advantage for the German.
Qualifying started dry, but, as Johnny Herbert, ex-F1 driver put it, "the weather is unpredictable this weekend, so they may have only one try to get it right." The
Lotus crew decided that it is time to do that as early as possible, and
Harry Chapman was right behind them... and
Vidal continued to drive impressively... 1:16.809... and
Chapman could not match that, +0.317 slower!
Holtz... slower +0.493... and here is
Wexler in sector one... +0.060 slower than
Vidal... sector two... +0.085... on start finish... HE GOES FASTEST! 1:16.662!
Wexler on provisional pole! And it stayed dry for the second round... can
Chapman land a counter blow, and at least secure a front row start?
And here they start their flying laps...
Wexler,
Rodrigues,
Holtz,
Chapman,
Vidal...
Wexler... PINK IN SECTOR ONE -0.064... still fast in sector two... slow in sector three and no improvement! Both
Steinmann on quick laps... can they nail the final sector?
VIDAL PINK IN SECTOR ONE!
Chapman STAYS THIRD! +0.202 behind
Wexler... and
Vidal smashed them all with a 1:16.544 for pole position!
Team Radio of the Day:
"YEEEEAAAAHHH! Pole Position, hell yeah!"
Iker Vidal,
Lotus Racing after his pole lap!
--
Wow. That one was on merit. Now, weather... It once again starts in the dry and we don't know when the rain will come and if it comes... so no experiments.
Vidal will start on the soft compound and try to drive away... which most likely won't work as we can not run the highest engine mode all race long.
We will try a 1-stopper with
Jeremy, something that has worked scarily well last year in a dry race.