Eighth fastest in Friday night’s practice, Fernando Alonso is anticipating a “close battle” to get into Q3 for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The double World Champion made a promising start to his Singapore weekend as he posted a 1:40.459 under the lights on Friday night.

That put him inside the top-ten in eighth place.

“It was a positive Friday,” Alonso said. “It’s always amazing to be around these streets at these speeds.

“We tried some interesting stuff, also comparing different configurations on the two cars. We gathered good information about the tyres and about the set-up changes that we were managing in both free practice sessions, and we will go through them tonight.