Red Bull duo fastest in Singapore practice

SINGAPORE (AP) — Red Bull dominated Friday's practice for the Singapore Grand Prix, setting the two fastest times to send an early message to its Formula One championship rivals.

Sebastian Vettel set an impressive time of 1 minute, 46.660 seconds around the Marina Bay circuit in the second practice session — six tenths of a second clear of teammate Mark Webber and a full second faster than third-fastest Jenson Button of McLaren.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso's session was cut short after he took an escape road and couldn't restart the car. Alonso had looked set to better Vettel's time on that lap, but ended the session fourth fastest.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was fifth, with the five top drivers in the championship standings posting the five fastest times in the session — setting the stage for a hard-fought qualifying on Saturday.

"It's better to be on top than behind," Vettel said. "To be on top by quite a bit is also a nice thing. But we'll see on Sunday. It's still a tough track, very bumpy, very rough."

The showing of Webber and Vettel in both sessions dashed the hopes of both McLaren and Ferrari that Red Bull's advantage this season on high downforce tracks had been negated by new rules that limit the cars' floor flexibility. Red Bull's victories at the Monaco and Hungary races, which are staged on similarly twisty tracks to Singapore, came before the new regulation was in place.

"We are struggling with the new rules," Webber joked after the session. "We knew nothing would change in that sense. We were not coming here expecting to be slower than we were in Budapest."

Button described the Red Bulls as "crazy quick," and expressed anger at the modified severe curbing at the chicane, which leaves almost no room for error.

"I'm looking up at the lights most of the time when I'm going through there," Button said. "As soon as the front hits the curb it's up in the air. I have no control of the steering at all through there."

Alonso's aggressive final lap, in which he went off while challenging to post the fastest lap, was an indication that the Spaniard has a legitimate shot at back-to-back race wins, after winning the Italian GP two weeks ago.

However, Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali was less than enthusiastic about the team's chances, given the disparity in Friday's times.

"I am expecting Red Bull here to be a little stronger than us on pure performance," Domenicali said.

The opening practice session was affected by rain that fell earlier in the day, and the track remained wet enough for all but the final 20 minutes to be done on intermediate tires.

The slow-drying street circuit increases the prospect of either Saturday's qualifying or Sunday's race starting on a damp track, given afternoon rain was forecast for both days.

Webber was fastest in that opening session, but little could be read into the performance because of the lack of laps on slick tires.

In the second session, Force India's Adrian Sutil snapped his front suspension when going too hard over the curbs and Renault's Robert Kubica also had his second session limited by a hydraulics problem.