Sebastian Vettel thinks qualifying will be tight at the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday after Red Bull and Ferrari managed to finish second practice ahead of Mercedes.
Red Bull finished first and third in FP2, either side of Vettel's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, as Mercedes appeared to struggle on the super-soft tyres compared to its rivals. However, Vettel does not expect Mercedes to be off the pace on Saturday evening when qualifying begins and thinks the presence of Red Bull sets up a fascinating duel for the front three rows.
"The Mercedes will be quick, I don't know what happened to them today, they looked a bit slow but I'm sure they will change it for tomorrow," Vettel continued. "We know some of the Merc teams don't show everything on Friday so we'll see. As expected, the Red Bulls are fairly quick round here [too]. It will be tight tomorrow."
Ferrari's long run pace compared to Mercedes suggested the racing on Sunday should also be close, with Vettel shaping up well against Rosberg on old super-soft tyres. Vettel thinks Ferrari is still a long way from perfecting its set-up. "It was a good day for us, the car seems to work, but I think we can still improve. I was not entirely happy with the short runs I had, so for quail we have to improve a bit. If we put all these things together, we should be a bit quicker.
"For the race, in the end it looked quite OK. I didn't see that much but the pace seemed to be there so we'll see."