11.41 BST – Hello, bonjour, hola and whatever it is in Singapore to “say hello and welcome to another hour of Grosjean lobbing it into a wall.” At 12.00BST or 19.00 Marina Bay time, FP3 kicks off and I will be your ‘terry host for the session.
I would have been in Singapore right now to give you the real deal commentary wise, full of atmosphere and insight, however we blew the entire Patty travel budget last week when we all flew first class to Paris to stand outside a court and throw eggs at Piquet, masquerading as reporters. So instead, I’ll be sat here with some live timing, Jonathan Legard telling me Alguersuari’s on a charge despite being 8 seconds off the pace and some sporadic commentary may follow if my fingers can channel their Legard fuelled anger into something useful.
Speaking of BBC, it’s namedrop o’clock on the Twitter feeds of two of their presenters. Jake Humphrey said he bumped into Ecclestone (I imagine in their combined case, Jake’s knee hit Bernie’s face) earlier and then Lee “bitterly disappointed” McKenzie says she walked into the pits alongside Black Eyed Peas. And here I was ready to namedrop that I’d hung out of with Alesha Dixon in my latest sleep and that I certainly had nothing to complain about.
11.50 BST – Anyway, mind back on cars. Yesterday the Brawns and the Red Bulls were the pace setters, with Alonso performing his usual heroics to drag his now ING-less dog into second by the close of FP2. Expect him to go well this weekend.
Not to delve too deep into the F1 cliché book at this early hour (don’t worry, to finish first ... isn’t going to be rolled out, yet), but Singapore appears to be a real driver’s circuit as shown by who is doing well and who isn’t. The four new guys to F1 2009 all struggled yesterday and ended up in the final four of FP2, with Grosjean hilariously even trying to fix practice in FP1. There’s not much run off in certain areas too which means if you get a little out of shape, that can be it (race over and sent to watch Formula 1 Rocks as punishment) which is great for us fans if not for the mechanics of Nakas.
What’s also interesting is how much pace the circuit is picking up over the weekend, it’s very Monaco mid 1990sesque. After initially just scraping under the 2 minute barrier, the boys on track are into the 1:40s now as the dust clears with every circulation.
So in this session expect a) them to hit well into the 1:46s by Q2 b) Eddie Jordan to moan about absolutely anything (does it count as alliteration when ¼ of the alliteration is “alliteration”?) with DC. And oh, oh, what’s this, a late entry c) Some absolute nobody from BBC says it may rain in qualifying. Woooo for mixed up grids, arise Sir Sutil.
11.55 BST – As you know, this is my first stab at live ‘terry so I’m sure I’ll be fired and sent back to tea making duties once this is done. The Foot puts things a better way.
The Foot: “With you tonight is the Foot, the other body parts are on hand, or neck, or leg, depending on their exact location on the musculoskeletal system that is Patty.”
11.59 BST – Ted Kravitz is getting all male and forgetting about his actual job (to walk around like a prat in a full Sparco fireproof suit) and waxing lyrical about Beyoncé.
If you think you can beat Ted at his own game and speak drivel, feel free to email in your thoughts/comments/abuse to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I’ll read it out here. Maybe.
12.05 BST – No FP1 messing about today, everyone’s gone out for an installation lap, with some drivers electing to do practice starts at the end of the pitlane. Renault’s starts look as crap as ever, with Bob Bell frowning down from the pitwall in his new payrise seat.
Still not much going on track as Jenson does a fashionably late installation lap to show off his new sponsor Canon, plucked from Brawn’s new Brackley time machine that allows them to fly all the way back to 1991. The Head’s obviously jealous of my new job.
The Head - "I'm almost missing being the FP3 typer this week. The important word in that sentence is 'almost'."
12.10 BST – Maybe I spoke too soon, nobody’s out on track at all as Webbo points and smiles to the camera. How lovely. Looking slightly less happy to be here was Damon Hill, sat in some VIP area with Pedro de la Rosa in the middle of a very lame and dull conversation. If the conversation was anything like as slow as Pedro is behind a steering wheel then I can sympathise with the 1996 world champion. And I’ve just realised Ari Vatanen is sat on the table too – the table of the nearly men?
12.14 BST - The Foot - "Ahhh, the joys of FP3 with no coverage. It allows my imagination to run wild, I'll give you a hint of whats on my mind. It involves 20 shirtless Mark Webbers riding chariots around Ben Hur styles...I see now, a pillow fight has broken out at T3! OH YEAH!"
12.17 BST – Alguersuari’s car is too embarrassed to go on track as it folds its arms and parks itself at the end of the pitlane. Hilariously the car is half a metre over the white line, meaning the mechanics can’t touch. After the STR team translate to the marshalls to “push the sodding car back to us you t***s” their car complete with foetus driver is returned to them.
Cars are on track now and doing laps, Grosjean’s hanging it all out, but it’s Kimi P1 at the moment on a late 1:51.
The Foot - "A table of nearly men? Reminds me of my days spent in Thailand..."
12.24 BST – The Head has pitched a tent as Nico takes P1 but he’s soon back to normal as he’s displaced by Kubica.
Kimi then has the most shameful “incident” of the noughties, braking a little too late and literally just rolling to a stop just short of the barriers. He turns into a Dad, puts his arm around the headrest and gently backs the car up and then gets back to going round the circuit the right way.
... NICO BACK TO P1!
12.28 BST – Sam Michael backtracks in fantastic fashion over KERS, obviously Luca and Whitmarsh armed with baseball bats cornered the Aussie during breakfast. Instead of saying Williams are definitely going to use the crap technology next year, they’ve now retreated into the trenches with “we may use it.” FOTA boat is now no longer rocking like the Titanic.
Lewis Hamilton is up 1.74 decades on the others at the second sector, leading to a low 1:48 to take P1 in the session. Barrichello, Heikki P45, Heidfeld and Kubica make up the rest of the top 5.
12.34 BST – After some mild profanities by me about RBR in the Patty Monaco Yacht Club where we conduct our terry, they listen to our influential ways as Vettel takes 2nd. Webber’s on a charge (ho ho ho), but still not turning in laps near his team mate’s pace.
Hakkinen walks into the pits with a beautiful blonde on his arm, with the camera wisely turning off before he can walk over to the lens and blabber on about Jonny Walker.
12.44 BST – So we’re more than half way through the session now and still nothing exciting has happened. It’s a German invasion on the top 10 with all five of them in the Q3 slots, but Hamilton flies the flag proudly for Britain by staying on top.
Brawn seem to be doing their usual trick of being average in FP3 before creaming everyone in Q3 – Barrichello’s 4th and Button’s 12th and moaning like a child on the radio. As The Head’s pointed out, the field spread is quite noticeable here, perhaps due to the long lap nature of the circuit. Trulli is doing himself wonders for a 2010 contract by being 5 seconds down on Hamilton.
By the way, you can still email in whatever’s on your mind at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it !
12.47 BST – The Head – "Nico matches McLaren's 'take fuel out of car now' tactic to go P2. Boom."
12.51 BST – It all feels a bit like the quiet before the storm. Only Kimi’s on track and this time he’s not reversing his way round the streets of Asia. He takes 7th with a 1:48:8. There’s no sign of rain despite the earlier rumours, but things can change quickly in this part of the world so don’t forget to join us for qually here at 14.45BST on Patty. Or we’ll send Luca and Whitmarsh round to your house.
12.55 BST – I was right, the storm begins with Vettel kicking off the frantic final 10 minutes of the session with a very sideways lap that nevertheless was fastest today, thanks partly to the soft tyres. Grosjean’s out now too and propels himself up into ... 18th. The equally slow Fisichella demonstrates in a super slowmo that despite his woeful pace he can raise a shower of sparks with the best of them. Eat your heart out 1987 review videos.
12.59 BST – Hamilton makes his 2009 contribution to the failblog awards by having an effectively pathetic outbraking “incident” as Kimi earlier. No damage though and he lazily reverses far further back up the track than needs be to turn it around.
2 minutes left in the session now and there are major traffic issues for everyone, with pint-sized Ant Davidson pointing out this is a brief glimpse of how qualifying will be, as shown by Barrichello and Heikki having laps ruined by Grosjean and Nakas respectively.
Hamilton improves again to take P1 ahead of Vettel and the impressive Rosberg.
13.07 BST – SESSION OVER. Well that was anti-climatic with no real big changes at the end there. The most interesting parts of that session were the revenge acts of Glock on Rosberg and Barrichello and Grosjean who made a pair of block passes and brake tests to make the point of “you disappointed me earlier on the lap old chap,” to quote them both verbatim.
Brawn perhaps aren’t as strong as I predicted, with Button moaning even more than usual and demanding to know “what’ve you done to the car guys?” as if Nick Fry sent him out in a Dallara F3 just for a laugh.
Quick round-up of the top 10 then. Lewis, Vettel, Nicooooo, Heikki, Kubica, Quick Nick, Boobens, Glock, Bwemmy (?!) and Trulli make up the top 10 of FP3.
I hope that all wasn’t too much of a car crash for you to read, it was fun and a pleasure to type nonsense every 5 minutes as I saw it. Please join us again very shortly (about 14.45 BST) for qualifying!
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