Patronise F1

Fernando Alonso savaged a lap of the Singapore track to end the Satuday practice session clear at the top. Fuel load whispers aside, a 1:44.506 was comfortably the fastest lap of the floodlit street track so far, and the resurgant Spaniard may well be an outside bet for pole position.

His lap left him over half a second clear of Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, who continued their close tussle which will doubtless be the one to watch in qualifying, while fourth place went to the unlikely form of Nelson Piquet Jr, adding credence to the theory that Renault are finding this track especially kind.

Nico Rosberg was fifth, as Williams continue to push for points at Singapore, with Jenson Button again defying the laws of physics by getting his Honda up into 6th place overall. Robert Kubica, Mark Webber and the Toro Rosso pair completed the top ten, with Vettel slipping back late on having topped the times for much of the session.

Heikki Kovalainen had a difficult time of it, ending down in 13th place, but he didn't have as unhapy a time as his fellow Finn. Kimi Raikkonen spun down an escape road with around 15 minutes to go, and couldn't recover his Ferrari back to the track.

Other having dismal sessions included Giancarlo Fisichella, who had a spectacular crash at the high-kerbed chicane, and wrote off the right side of his Force India in the wall, and David Coulthard, who took his turn at picking up the Red Bull reliability disease with a gearbox glitch that prevented him from turning in any really meaningful lap times.

So then, can Alonso take an unlikely pole position? Quite possibly, though how much fuel he'll use to get there is another debate entirely.