Kimi Raikkonen fastest in Singapore practice session as new car designs revealed

Hamilton tweeting that he would 'defo' be interested in driving Mercedes’ version, but they won't be available until the end of 2019

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel almost got a little too close here this evening. Early in the second practice session Hamilton was chasing the German’s Ferrari and appeared to be considering an overtaking move, when he decided at the last moment to abort, pulled back into line behind the Ferrari and then locked his brakes and slid into an escape road after nearly running into the back of it.

It was one of the few incidents of the day (another being newly signed Ferrari recruit Charles Leclerc making a rare error and damaging his Sauber’s front suspension against the wall in Turn 13 at the end of the first session).

Vettel was the victim of the other big moment, when he hit the wall on the exit to Turn 21 quite hard with the right rear wheel of his Ferrari and had to curtail his running. That was the bad part for Ferrari. The good part was that Monza pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen, who will leave the team to make way for Leclerc at the end of the season, was again fastest.

After the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen had set the pace in the first session, the Finn was in charge in the second, establishing the benchmark with 1m 38.699s. Hamilton was the only man anywhere near him, lapping just 0.011s slower in an encouraging first day for Mercedes who have struggled here for several years.

Ferrari bound Charles Leclerc made a rare error (Getty)

Raikkonen’s lap was the fastest ever recorded at the Marina Bay circuit, easily beating Vettel’s 2017 pole position lap of 1m 39.491s. “It was a good day, and we got everything done that we needed to,” he said. “It was a good start.”

Hamilton, too, was happy. After their past problems here getting optimal tyre performance, Mercedes’ programme focused on understanding qualifying and race performance of the three different tyre compounds – Pirelli’s soft, ultrasoft and hypersoft - and confirming front and rear tyre temperature expectations. “The first session of the day was good, even though it might not show on the timesheets as we didn't use the hypersoft tyres,” Hamilton said after finishing sixth overall before using the fastest tyres in the second session.

“We got through our programme today, tried some different options and got some good results from it. We were close to the Ferraris, but we will only find out tomorrow how quick they really are. “The guys have been working so hard both here at the track and back at the factory to improve the car and it is definitely feeling better than it did in the past. The track is incredible; we're a lot quicker than we were last year, but that also makes the lap so much harder than it was even last year because the G forces have gone up. We need to react quicker and it is crazy hot in the cockpit. You're sweating even before you get into the car; in the second session, I think I lost almost two kilos, so I will lose even more on Sunday. “We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, but it's looking like it might be a three-way fight between Ferrari, Red Bull and us.”

After naively revealing a rendering of the latest concept for the 2021 car to a group of engineering students here on Wednesday, and seeing social media scooping everyone as i-phone photographs went viral, F1’s managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn belatedly revealed the current progress of the sport’s most crucial revamp to the media yesterday.

The Concept 3 design revealed a swoopy machine with simplified wings and an aggressive stance on new the 18-inch wheels (Formula 1) (Getty)

“Aesthetics are very important to us,” he stressed, as the Concept 3 design revealed a swoopy machine with simplified wings and an aggressive stance on new the 18-inch wheels that will be a key feature. But the primary consideration has been raceability. “We can see that when the current cars get too close to each other, when one driver seeks to overtake another, there is a substantial loss of performance,” Brawn said. “The current cars can lose up to 50 percent. In that condition when one driver is running two or three car lengths behind, the following driver loses aerodynamic grip and his tyres start to degrade. It’s as if there is a force field around the car in front that the following car cannot penetrate. It loses downforce, balance and stability, and the tyres are hurting, so it’s a triple whammy.”

He said that the latest concept, arrived at after lengthy research with a designer working closely with aerodynamicists, suggests that cars will be able to maintain 80 percent of their performance. “I believe this is the first time that F1 has majored on these aspects,” Brawn added. “And this is the first time that the process has been proactive rather than reactive, as we have worked with the teams to get their feedback and input based on models we have provided them with.”

He revealed that FOM and the FIA, working jointly, have also liaised with Indycars, swapping information on body-shaping, most notably wheel fairings. The US racing category changed from an aesthetically displeasing and complex aero shape reminiscent of a superkart to something much simpler and more elegant for 2018, with significant success in the eyes of drivers and fans. "The primary purpose is to produce raceable cars, cars that will battle in close proximity," he said.

“We see it in other forms of racing, but they are often categories with fixed designs and everyone races the same car. You don't have the extreme designs like in F1. "Formula 2 cars can lose less performance when they are racing together, but the new IndyCar is great in that respect. We've been sharing some info with IndyCar on their experiences.

"I am pretty optimistic that we will produce some great looking cars and they will be able to race each other much more effectively than they were in the past.” He admitted: “I’m frustrated that cars in video games look better than what we are racing on the track. That is not to say we pay total homage to what will look great in a video game. It has to be a great racing car, too. But fans like good-looking cars, and now they feel like we are listening to them.”

Generally, Concept 3 has met with approval, Hamilton tweeting that he would “defo” be interested in driving Mercedes’ version. The final concept probably won’t be finalised until the end of 2019, giving teams a year to prepare for 2021, but it appears that things are moving in an encouraging direction that should achieve its aim of improving the standard of racing and on-track action, possibly without the need for drag reduction system (DRS) rear wings.