Bourdais praises 'unbelievable' Singapore

The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver, who has vast experience of street circuits and night racing from his years in Champ Car, has allayed any fears about a lack of visibility for drivers by claiming even he never expected the lighting around the track to be as good as he has found it.

"It is daylight," Bourdais told as preparations continued at the Marina Bay circuit on Wednesday. "The most unbelievable job they have done is with the lighting. It is quite impressive. You have all these structures built around the place, all overhead. It's quite impressive - I have never seen anything like it."

Although happy about the lighting at the circuit and most of the layout, he is worried about the tight chicane that has been built at Turn 10 - and especially the high bumps over the kerbs that will likely launch cars that hit them.

"I walked the track for the first time yesterday, and they did a really good job," he explained. "I'm quite impressed. It is obviously a huge undertaking when you have to build from scratch, but I think they did really well.

"The only thing I am a bit bewildered by is the chicane (at Turn 10) that they have put together. I can see why they have done it because there is no run off there, and it would be a fast and open corner if you did not do something, but even so!

"We had a similar problem in Champ Car when they were trying to prevent cars from short cutting chicanes at Monterrey, and the things were half the size of what they are right now - and we were smashing the tubs there left and right.

"Since you don't go and buy a Lola or whatever it is these days in F1, you cannot really afford to damage cars. I haven't seen Charlie (Whiting, F1 race director) yet, but I am a bit surprised. There are fixes for this though.

"The pit entry also seems to be a bit dodgy. You will be running quite a bit quicker than the guy who is going to pit, and you are all going to get to the same point because the entry is just hard left.

"So these are my only two concerns - otherwise the rest of the track is really nicely done. It is a nice track."

And he has drawn short of making any prediction for how the event will be if it is hit with the kind of storms that F1 personnel witnessed when they arrived in Singapore on Wednesday morning.

When asked if he was worried about a rain-hit race, he said: "I know what this kind of weather is like when it rains because I have been living in Florida for a long time - so for sure if it downpours like it can then it might be a bit interesting But let's hope not!

"It is not even a challenge then - it is only adequate for a boat rather than anything else when it rains around these places."