Practice one, Schumacher heavy rain hit Assembly

Mercedes Michael Schumacher upstaged Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in a super-wet opening practice session on Friday morning in Korea - and just got away with a very off-course moment coming into the pits at the end of the session.

For the first 40 minutes nothing much happened as the rain fell and everyone waited, but then McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton did a handful of laps and set the pace with 2m 03.391s before coming back into the pits. That time would stand up as seventh best overall. Then Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi did 2m 03.182s, which would stand up for fifth, before he too came in.

Towards the end there was a flurry of activity. Vettel had a near miss with a backmarker but still went fastest on 2m 02.852s before Schumacher did 2m 02.784s to go quickest, and Vettel’s reply just fell short at 2m 02.840s. Paul di Resta was another late improver, jumping ahead of Force India team mate Adrian Sutil who had been fastest briefly. The Scot managed 2m 02.912s for third to the German’s 2m 03.141s which was fourth best.

Karun Chandhok impressed with 2m 06.350s for 11th for Lotus, ahead of Williams’ serial offroader Pastor Maldonado on 2m 06.852s, while rookie Jean-Eric Vergne looked perfectly at home and impressed greatly with 2m 07.541s for 13th. In the second Toro Rosso’s wake, Rubens Barrichello did 2m 08.218s in the second Williams to head Narain Karthikeyan who aced Daniel Ricciardo in the HRT team, 2m 08.832s to 2m 09.232s. The Virgins made brief forays, Jerome D’Ambrosio lapping his in 2m 12.658s from Timo Glock on 2m 14.508s.

Much, however, depended on when you ran, so we will get a clearer picture of the pecking order thus far this afternoon. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, Renault’s Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov, Lotus’s Heikki Kovalainen and McLaren’s Jenson Button did not venture out beyond installation laps.

Fernando Alonso as a Best F1 Driver

Alonso's father built him a kart when he was merely two years old other than it was not until he was 13 that he was able to do any serious racing. He won the Spanish cadet national kart title in 1994. Two years later he won the World Junior Karting title and he continued in karts until 1999 when he moved into car racing in the Nissan Open series in Spain, driving for former F1 driver Adrian Campos's team. He won the title at his first challenge and then moved into Formula 3000 with assistance from Telefonica.

 He raced for Team Astromega and won the Spa race and finished fourth in the series. He was signed to an organization contract by Flavio Briatore and as a result was soon named as a Minardi test driver and in 2001 became the number one driver for the team, which had just been bought by Australia's Paul Stoddart. After an inspiring first season Alonso took the decision to become the Renault test driver in 2002, in the knowledge that he would graduate to the race team in 2003. He joined Renault as expected and with the impressive R23 was able to well and won his first victory in Hungary in August. 

Furthermore Alonso was implicated in a spy scandal when it was discovered that Ferrari technical information had been leaked to McLaren. Four wins were not enough to get the championship for Alonso. He and Hamilton each ended up with 109 points, one shy of the 110 scored by champion Kimi Raikkonen.

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The Youngest World Champion in History of F1

Fernando, like most of the other Formula 1 drivers, began racing go karts while still a child. In fact, his first race was at age 3. He won several national and local Spanish championships and in 1996 he won the world junior karting championship. He began racing cars at 18, winning his first championship, the Euro-Open Nissan series, where he won six races. He joined the Formula 3000 series in 2000, where he finished fourth, winning at Spa-Franco champs. 

His Career:

With only two seasons of car racing behind him before he joined Formula 1 in 2001 at the age of 19, Fernando had shown very little reason to outsiders to merit the praise of his manager, Flavio Briatore, the man who had hired Michael Schumacher at Benetton in 1991 when he was an unknown. Early on, Briatore would compare Fernando to the German driver.

After a year learning the ropes at Minardi, Fernando joined Renault in 2002 for a sabbatical from racing as a test driver. During this year he developed his technical knowledge and his rapport with the team. The result was that in 2003 when he became a full-time driver at Renault, he was a fully-fledged and experienced F1 racer. At the Hungarian Grand Prix in August he won his first race, becoming the youngest ever Formula 1 race winner at 22 years and 27 days old. 

Driving Style:

Fernando has a smooth driving style marked by the intelligence of both his technical approach and in dealing with traffic and other competitors. On the track he keeps his head under pressure, rarely cracking or making a mistake when it is vital to hold position.

Motor Racing: Alonso aims for third win at Singapore GP

SINGAPORE: Two-time World Champion and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso is gunning for his third win at the Singapore Formula One race.

The Spaniard, who has the best record in Singapore, winning twice before in 2008 and 2010, said this year's race will be more exciting.

Fernando Alonso, together with Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, made an appearance at Resorts World Sentosa on Thursday evening.

Alonso admits the world championship is likely to be won by Sebastian Vettel, and his team is focussing on reducing the Red Bull outfit's domination next year. But that is not stopping him from ensuring that his team will take the chequered flag at the Marina Bay Circuit in style this time.

Alonso said: "This year there is more overtaking, so I expect a very big show on Sunday, I hope everyone will enjoy the race because with the difference in the tyre performance, the difference in the DRS, with the KERS as well.

"We saw a lot of overtaking manoeuvres this year and so it will be no different here in Singapore so the race should be quite nice to watch."