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<!-- Talks of staging a Formula One grand prix in Singapore began early in 2007, with the stress on arranging this to be a night race in order to cater Formula One's audience in Europe. The race was approved in May and construction for the grand prix complex began in August 2007. The lighting system consisted of nearly 1600 light projectors, separated by four meters and suspended 10 meters above the track. The system generated a total of 3000 lux intensity which is four times intensity used in standard football stadium. The whole system required total of 108,423 meter cables and was connected to twelve twin-powered generators, generating estimated power of three megawatts.

Heading into the race, Lewis Hamilton led the Drivers' Championship by one point to Ferrari's Felipe Massa. They were followed by BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Massa's team-mate Kimi Räikkönen. In the Constructors' Championship, Ferrari were in the lead with 134 points, followed by McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Sauber.

Majority of drivers and teams inspected the track ahead of the racing weekend. Most of them praised the track and arrangements undertaken by the track authorities. Concerns however were raised about possible difficulties in overtaking and track characteristics at certain points. These concerns in particular focused towards high bumps present on the kerbs of Turn 10 chicane. Concerns were also expressed on safety measures needed in case of rain during the race.

Due to difference in the race time with respect to usual race times, the teams and drivers had to adapt to altered working hours. This meant that they started working around late afternoon, stayed up until 0300-0400 hrs and woke up at around midday local time. -->

Practice and qualifying
Prior to the qualifying session on Saturday September 27, three free practice sessions were held; two sessions on Friday and one session on Saturday. With the race to be held in night, the practice sessions were also scheduled accordingly. The Friday practice sessions were held at 1600hrs and 2000hrs local time, each lasting for 90 minutes. The third practice session was held on Saturday at 1700hrs local time for one hour.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in the first practice session on Friday. He was followed by Ferraris of Massa and Räikkönen and his McLaren teammate Kovalainen. Red Bull's Mark Webber suffered a crash on Turn 18 barriers, damaging his front suspension. A number of drivers faced problems in final turn of the track, including Honda's Rubens Barrichello who crashed backwards into barriers. Toyota's Jarno Trulli also spun on this turn and made his way into the pits by driving in the wrong direction. Trulli was fined €10,000 for his misconduct. Renault's Fernando Alonso topped the time-sheets in the second practice session, displacing Hamilton to second position with his final flying lap. The two were followed by Kovalainen, Massa and Nico Rosberg. In a close incident, Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais almost ran into Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber as he exited from the pit lane into the first turn. In other incidents, Timo Glock lost his front wing on crashing into wall on Turn 7, Giancarlo Fisichella faced gearbox problems and Massa mistakenly took a wrong turn towards the escape road off the track.

Alonso was once again the fastest man on the track in the final practice session, with Hamilton and Massa second and third respectively. Multiple drivers faced problems with bumps on the track, narrowly avoiding accidents. Fisichella rammed his Force India VJM01 hard into the barriers when it flew off the kerbs on Turn 10 chicane. The accident caused front wing and suspension damages to the car.

Räikkönen topped the first qualifying session, ahead of Kovalainen and Hamilton. Nelson Piquet Jr., Sébastien Bourdais, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella were those who were eliminated in this session. Fisichella could not record a time during the session after he crashed into barriers at Turn 3 due to a punctured tyre, thus was 20th and last. Barrichello was impeded during his second lap run by Nick Heidfeld and abandoned his lap to enter pits. Both Heidfeld and Barrichello were penalised for their maneuvers: Heidfeld was dropped three grids for blocking and Barrichello was fined €10,000 for unsafe pit lane entry, without using the deceleration zone.

The second qualifying session was led by Felipe Massa, with Kovalainen and Räikkönen in second and third place. Alonso, despite his performance during practice sessions, was eliminated early in this session when his car suffered a fuel feed problem. The others who missed the top ten were Jarno Trulli, Jenson Button and both Red Bulls of Mark Webber and David Coulthard. Hamilton barely managed to reach the third session, after a driving mistake during his penultimate lap run.

Massa took the pole position in the final session, with Hamilton, Räikkönen and Kubica completing first two rows of the grid. Massa secured his position by clocking lap time six-tenths faster than Hamilton, describing it as his best qualifying result of the season. Kovalainen, managing fifth position, rued his tyre selections in the final session. Heidfeld, Vettel and Glock scored sixth, seventh and eighth positions, with Williams drivers Rosberg and Nakajima were ninth and tenth.