F1: turning night into day

The track winds through both new and old parts of the city, and out to the Marina Bay area.

The lighting is a special directional lighting: unlike floodlights such as are used in US oval racing, the F1 lights are designed to make pools of light, and spaced so the pools are contiguous. The angle of the lights means that there is little or no glare in dry conditions. As a result, drivers will not be dazzled by the lights, each of which casts 2000 watts of blue-white light as near as possible to daylight.

As the first night test takes place today, the drivers will get their first taste of racing under what might be called un-natural light. It's not going to be like the tunnel at Monaco which is lit with sodium lights from the side. The cars themselves will have no lights (except the rear red light as usual).

Just one question remains: how will it be if it rains. For the past few days, the Malay peninsular has been largely dry - but with heavy tropical storms nearby. Just a couple of hundred kilometres away, a China Airways jet hit turbulence approaching Bali and several passengers were injured. Typhoons a couple of hours flights north have caused havoc and a little further away, Hong Kong airport was all-but closed after a Storm Force Eight warning was hoisted. Whilst Singapore is unlikely to suffer from that severity, the tail of such storms does extend far, and a tropical downpour on a street circuit (with the oil etc. dropped by vehicles using the road as normal) is an unknown factor, as is the effect of the lights on the visors.

Part of the circuit passes the historic buildings along the Riverside and crosses a narrow cast iron bridge before making a hard left outside the Fullerton Hotel.

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