Can Red Bull really beat Mercedes?

Red Bull always expected the Singapore Grand Prix to represent one of its best chances to score a strong result over the rest of this Formula 1 season. The Marina Bay F1 circuit is a street track, so lacks the sort of lengthy straightline sections that expose the power deficit of Red Bull's Renault engine.

That's why the team deliberately incurred so many grid penalties for engine component changes last time out at Monza, to ensure it came to Singapore with the freshest and most reliable combination of power unit elements it could run without incurring further sanction.

The Red Bull has also improved drastically since a major front wing update was introduced for July's British GP. That aerodynamic step dramatically improved the feel of the car for the drivers, and further tweaks over the next three races have helped turn the RB11 into something that Daniel Ricciardo now reckons is basically as decent to drive as last year's race-winning RB10.

In Hungary we got a glimpse of how competitive Red Bull could be in the right circumstances. Ricciardo qualified on row two, fractionally behind Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari, and was a contender for victory in the race, thanks to Mercedes imploding and the RB11 being very strong in race trim.

Hamilton was only fourth on a quiet day by Mercedes' usual standard © LAT

After the opening day of free practice in Singapore, where all teams again run the highest downforce specification they can muster, Red Bull looks very fast once more.

The lower-fuel 'qualifying' laps on the softest compound of tyre are a useful guide, but always a little misleading, given all the cars run in a slightly detuned engine mode at this stage of the weekend, before cranking up performance for qualifying. Fuel loads will also vary between teams, so it's difficult to get an accurate read.

Nevertheless, Mercedes usually leads the way in this regard anyway on Friday, so to see Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg down in fourth and seventh places respectively was a surprise. In fact you have to go back as far as the 2013 US GP to find the last time a Mercedes did not end up occupying one of the top two places on the timesheet on a Formula 1 Friday.

PURE PACE COMPARISON
1. Red Bull (Kvyat) 1m46.142s
2. Ferrari (Raikkonen) 1m46.181s
3. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m46.479s
4. Force India (Perez) 1m46.659s
5. McLaren (Alonso) 1m46.959s
6. Toro Rosso (Verstappen) 1m47.427s
7. Williams (Massa) 1m47.684s
8. Sauber (Nasr) 1m47.755s
9. Lotus (Grosjean) 1m48.096s
10. Manor (Stevens) 1m53.903s (FP1)

The extra caveat here is that Hamilton made a mistake on his first flying lap on the super-soft tyre, locking up and running straight on at Turn 1. That meant his fastest time was set on his second flying lap, when the tyres were not at their best.

Kvyat had a second crack at his super-soft run, after getting blocked by Romain Grosjean's Lotus first time around. Team-mate Ricciardo, who was third fastest on a 1m46.256s felt he also encountered traffic on his best lap.

Raikkonen had one of the cleaner runs of the leaders during FP2 © XPB

So it's probably fair to say the pure pace runs aren't totally representative. Kvyat produced a good lap, but on the back of poorer preparation, owing to sitting out much of FP1 with a fuel system problem on his Red Bull. Ricciardo would probably have been faster on a clear lap, and Hamilton would almost certainly have been quicker but for that error.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen appears to have had a clean run to the second fastest time of the session, but there are still the aforementioned fuel and engine setting variables to apply to his likely potential.

Interestingly, however, analysis of the higher-fuel race runs follows a similar pattern to the qualifying simulations, both in terms of the competitive order and the gaps between the respective cars.

LONG-RUN RANKING (Average of 5-lap runs on the super-soft tyre)
1. Red Bull 1m51.101s (Ricciardo)
2. Ferrari 1m51.118s (Vettel)
3. Mercedes 1m51.366s (Hamilton)
4. Force India 1m52.087s (Hulkenberg)
5. Toro Rosso 1m52.570s (Sainz)
6. Williams 1m52.745s (Massa)
7. Sauber 1m52.915s (Nasr)
8. McLaren 1m53.366s (Alonso)
9. Lotus 1m53.541s (Grosjean)

This suggests Mercedes - in Lewis Hamilton's hands at least - currently has a consistent 0.2-0.3s pace deficit to Ferrari and Red Bull, but although Ricciardo and Kvyat were both clearly pumped up by their respective performances so far, that doesn't mean they can start preparing to pop champagne corks come Sunday.

Even if their race pace remains slightly better than Mercedes through to the grand prix itself, Red Bull and Ferrari will find it difficult to make the most of that advantage if they can't qualify ahead of the silver cars.

We know Mercedes and Ferrari usually find significant time from turning up their engines for qualifying, something Renault cannot do to the same extent. Mercedes normally has just enough in hand in this regard to ensure it leads the way.

If that 'qualifying mode' is enough (along with the undoubted set-up tweaks that will be made through FP3 and qualifying) to lift Mercedes back ahead of the pack on Saturday, then a significant advantage will lay with the Silver Arrows once more.

Ricciardo spoke after the session of how Mercedes will "fool everyone" by doing just this, and based on the fact a Mercedes has taken pole position for every other race so far this season, it's difficult to genuinely believe that won't turn out to be the case again here.

If that happens, then its closest rivals will rely on beating the silver cars off the line - a realistic possibility given how well both Vettel and Ricciardo have started races recently - or a combination of a safety car and strategy to mix things up.

Based on past form, the safety car is highly likely to make an appearance here, while Pirelli is predicting a minimum of two pitstops per driver based on the tyre life it's witnessed so far, so this won't be another predictable one-stopper.

McLaren's race pace looks a long way from where it was hoping to be © LAT

It's also hot in Singapore, and we've seen in the past how those conditions can play into Ferrari's hands when the tyres are difficult to keep alive. This is an area where Red Bull has been stronger recently, so Mercedes will potentially face a stern test this weekend, certainly sterner than it faced at either of the last two races.

The unknown is the potential of Nico Rosberg, who lapped 0.639s slower than Kvyat in FP2 and was slower than both Force Indias on his super-soft race run. The German knows his title chances are fading after retirement at Monza, so he really needs to cut into Hamilton's points lead here.

He admits he went "the wrong way" with his car on Friday, but he will require a drastic improvement over the rest of the event in order to mix it with the other frontrunners. The good news at least is that he can take a lead from his team-mate's reasonable performance to shorten the learning curve and attain a better baseline set-up.

Further back, the strong form of the 'B-spec' Force India is continuing here, the car now featuring a revised floor and rear brake ducts, while both Williams and Sauber seem to have made some relative progress on the sort of circuit at which they would be expected to struggle.

At the moment, it is McLaren and Lotus that have the most work to do to turn their weekends around. The E23 is a decent car, but it lacks the peak downforce to be strong on this type of circuit. Extra power from its Mercedes engine will help, but it would be a miracle if Romain Grosjean or Pastor Maldonado made Q3 here.

McLaren-Honda came here hoping for another realistic chance to score points. Fernando Alonso's short run on the super-soft tyre looked encouraging, but the car is way off on the longer runs, trailing Force India by over a second and Sauber by almost half a second.

As it was for Red Bull, the Hungaroring was a good track for McLaren, but it is struggling to translate that form here. Ricciardo and Kvyat have no such worries. They look on it and the RB11 looks better than ever.

We just can't be sure yet whether it will be quite enough to end Red Bull's year-long win drought, but its race pace could become irrelevant if it qualifies behind Mercedes on Saturday.