Vettel puts pressure on Hamilton

Sepang : Sebastian Vettel smashed the all-time Sepang lap record as Ferrari put the pressure on Lewis Hamilton before a track fault brought an early halt to Malaysian Grand Prix practice yesterday.

Vettel clocked 1min 31.261sec around the 5.543-kilometre circuit on his qualifying simulation run in the second session to smash the old record of 1:32.50 set by Fernando Alonso in 2005.

His Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was second, six-tenths of a second adrift.

“It’s been a decent day,” Vettel told Sky TV. 

The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were third and fourth on a frustrating day for Mercedes’ championship leader, Hamilton who was only sixth fastest with Valtteri Bottas seventh.

“Red Bull looked very fast in the mixed conditions this morning, in the damp and wet on the intermediate tyres,” added Vettel.

Hamilton had been on just his 10th lap of the afternoon when he took too much speed into turn eight, resulting in a sideways excursion into the gravel and a wrecked set of soft tyres. Hamilton did manage to avoid beaching the car and was able to limp back to the pits, where his mechanics removed the nose and started making frantic changes to the set-up.

When he did re-emerge with 40 minutes of the session remaining his car appeared still to be handling erratically, and his first timed lap was fully 1.4 seconds down on Vettel.

“Fridays are when you play around and try some things,” Vettel said. “It looked like both Mercedes were struggling in morning and afternoon so I’m pretty sure they will be fine tomorrow.”

Ricciardo added: “I think Mercedes were quite heavy today. I don’t know if it’s legit or they’re playing some games.” 

Free practice times at Malaysian GP

1. Sebastian Vettel (GER) Ferrari 1:31.261

2. Kimi Raikkonen (FIN) Ferrari 1:31.865

3. Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) Red Bull 1:32.099

4. Max Verstappen (NED) Red Bull 1:32.109

5. Fernando Alonso (ESP) McLaren 1:32.564

6. Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes 1:32.677

7. Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Mercedes 1:32.720

8. Sergio Perez (MEX) Force India 1:32.862

9. Nico Hulkenberg (GER) Renault 1:33.060

10. Esteban Ocon (FRA) Force India 1:33.096 

11. Jolyon Palmer (GBR) Renault 1:33.381

12. Felipe Massa (BRA) Williams 1:33.394

13. Stoffel Vandoorne (BEL) McLaren 1:33.673

14. Lance Stroll (CAN) Williams 1:33.818

15. Pierre Gasly (FRA) Toro Rosso 1:34.043