Lewis Hamilton ensured normal service resumed for Mercedes as he rounded out Friday practice fastest of all.
The Mercedes driver, despite not having the smoothest of sessions, set a benchmark of 1:47.490 on the super-softs to top the timesheets, just over a tenth ahead of afternoon pacesetter Fernando Alonso in second, with a similar separating the Spainard and Daniel Ricciardo in third, sandwiched by the sister Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in fourth as drivers narrowed their lap times from the first session virtue to track evolution and running on the faster tyre compound.
Ricciardo’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel was sidelined for the majority of the session with an engine change, but managed to get out on track with ten minutes remaining and post the fifth quickest time, six tenths off the pace set by Hamilton. The two McLarens of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finished three tenths behind Vettel in sixth and and seventh respectively despite the latter struggling with balance earlier in the session. While the Force India pair Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg and Daniil Kvyat completed the top ten.
Jean-Eric Vergne followed in behind team-mate Kvyat in eleventh, with Romain Grosjean ending his session in twelfth, bringing with it a sign of encouraging for Lotus and their hopes of Singapore being an improvement on their form in Monza. Nico Rosberg was a surprising appearance in thirteenth as he opted to focus more on race runs as opposed to getting a short run on the Super-Softs like most, while Pastor Maldonado ran into trouble as he crashed at the Turn 10 left-hander, prompting the red-flags to be put into effect midway through the session.
Completing the most laps of anyone in the session were Esteban Gutierrez and his Sauber team-mate Adrian Sutil in fifteenth and sixteenth headed the Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, who like Rosberg didn’t do a low-fuel run on the quicker tyre and continued their trend of concentrating more on long-run pace on a Friday. With the Marussias and Caterhams respectively concluding their sessions in the bottom six spots.
| Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps | ||
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:47.490 | 25 | ||
| 2 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:47.623 | 0.133 | 25 | |
| 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 1:47.790 | 0.300 | 28 | |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:48.031 | 0.541 | 29 | |
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1:48.041 | 0.551 | 5 | |
| 6 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren | 1:48.358 | 0.868 | 33 | |
| 7 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:48.435 | 0.945 | 30 | |
| 8 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 1:48.653 | 1.163 | 30 | |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 1:48.751 | 1.261 | 31 | |
| 10 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 1:48.770 | 1.280 | 31 | |
| 11 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 1:48.800 | 1.310 | 33 | |
| 12 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 1:49.062 | 1.572 | 33 | |
| 13 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:49.075 | 1.585 | 30 | |
| 14 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 1:49.139 | 1.649 | 13 | |
| 15 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber | 1:49.170 | 1.680 | 34 | |
| 16 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber | 1:49.290 | 1.800 | 37 | |
| 17 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 1:49.361 | 1.871 | 29 | |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 1:49.971 | 2.481 | 28 | |
| 19 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 1:50.612 | 3.122 | 24 | |
| 20 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 1:51.558 | 4.068 | 21 | |
| 21 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham | 1:52.075 | 4.585 | 33 | |
| 22 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham | 1:52.936 | 5.446 | 31 |
