Webber in contention for pole in Singapore

Mark Webber gave himself hope of clinching his fourth pole position of the year following final practice for tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Red Bull have had it all their own way in qualifying this season, and it appears almost certain they will make it 14 in a row when the showdown takes place at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

The only question is which of their drivers will clinch top spot as Webber set the benchmark time so far for the weekend with a lap of one minute 46.081secs for the five-kilometre track.

Despite darkness descending on the Far East city for Formula One’s only night race, under the bright lights the drivers were made to sweat it out in 30 degree heat and humidity of 70%.

Jenson Button at least made amends for yesterday’s lack of running when a lock-up and lack of reverse gear cut short his FP2 to just 40 minutes.

Sporting a new rear wing on his McLaren, Button finished within 0.027secs of Webber, relegating champion-elect Vettel to third, a quarter of a second behind the Australian.

With the FIA replacing overnight a number of offending kerbs that had worked loose yesterday with non-slip paint, there was none of the drama that caused considerable delays.

Lewis Hamilton, though, seemingly struggled to get to grips with the circuit, with the Briton languishing in 20th with just three minutes remaining.

Eventually Hamilton dragged his McLaren up to fifth in the closing stages, albeit 0.855secs off Webber and good enough for only fifth quickest.

The 26-year-old was even half a second down on Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari, with the double world champion aiming for his third win in four years on this track.

Beyond the leading quintet, the remainder of the field will again be fighting over the minor places, both on the grid and in the race on the evidence of what has so far transpired.

The Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were split by just 0.006secs, albeit 1.7secs down on Webber and almost a full second off Hamilton in sixth and seventh.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was good enough for only eighth ahead of the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi and Adrian Sutil in his Force India.

As for the German’s team-mate in Paul di Resta, he managed to put in the miles after managing only seven timed laps yesterday due to a number of issues, with the most notable being a hydraulic brake failure.

Come the conclusion of the hour-long session, the Scot was only half a second down on Sutil in 13th.

On the longest lap of the year in terms of time due to the twisty nature of the 23-turn track, the gap from front to back is considerable.

Propping up the timesheet was Vitantonio Liuzzi for Hispania, the Italian 9.1secs slower than Webber.