Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN had a solid start in Singapore, as the first two practice sessions took place around the stunning Marina Bay circuit. Under the floodlights, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu completed two trouble free sessions, gathering extensive data for the team to crunch and showing promise of a good performance, with the Finn closing the final session in seventh place.

Valtteri Bottas: "It's been quite a positive Friday, a clean day in which we could go through all our programme nicely and do lots of laps. Our pace looks quite decent and it's nice to see we are in a condition to fight for Q3 tomorrow. It was interesting to have our first outing with the new cars here: the track felt a bit bumpy, but I was expecting more. I was still able to enjoy the track and had some good fun. Of course, there's more pace to find tonight: analysing the gaps between the tyre compounds will be crucial, but we had a good start and we can build on that."

Zhou Guanyu: "In general, our day has been smooth, a good start: we need to do another step forward tomorrow and we'll be in a position to have a good qualifying. It was interesting to have my first taste of Singapore, and the conditions were quite extreme. This track is really hard, you hardly have any time to catch your breath as you have corner after corner and they're all complex: it's hard, but also really enjoyable. The humidity and the heat you feel in the cockpit are an added challenge: I was prepared for this, but it's something you really feel. We can have a similar climate in China, but it's been a while since I was in these conditions! It's not only the physical side that is interesting here: the mental side is equally important on such a technical track, a bit like in Miami. I am looking forward to qualifying tomorrow: it will be special for me to race in front of my family and all the Chinese fans who are here."

Check out our Friday gallery from Singapore here.