Practice 1 Report - Shining armour in the night

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the first practice session for the Singapore GP on Friday evening. The British driver took his McLaren around the floodlit track just fast enough to edge out his World Championship rival Felipe Massa, in his Ferrari. Massa's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was four-tenths slower while Heikki Kovalainen in the second McLaren was fourth overall, half a second adrift of Raikkonen. Of the front four only Kovalainen had any real problems with a spin.

Robert Kubica was fifth quickest in his BMW, just two-tenths of a second behind Kovalainen while Nico Rosberg was sixth in his Williams-Toyota ahead of Fernando Alonso's Renault, Nick Heidfeld's BMW and the second Renault of Nelson Piquet Jr. Jenson Button was a surprise 10th in his Honda.

Monza winner Sebastian Vettel was 11th quickest, and the fastest of the four Red Bull cars, while Kazuki Nakajima was 12th in his Williams, ahead of the Toyota factory car of Timo Glock.

Sebastien Bourdais was 14th fastest ahead of David Coulthard, who had a spin, Rubens Barrichello, who backed his Honda into a wall, Adrian Sutil, who had a spin in his Force India and Giancarlo Fisichella in the Indian team's second car. The field was completed by Jarno Trulli who had two spins and Mark Webber who crashed into a wall early in the session.