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Rubens Barrichello pipped team-mate and title rival Jenson Button to the fastest time in Friday’s first practice at Singapore, as Brawn showed its expected advantage on the tight and bumpy Marina Bay street circuit. Button was in command for much of the session before being demoted by Barrichello with seven minutes remaining and finishing 0.177s adrift.

Red Bull Racing was more competitive out of the blocks than expected, with Mark Webber posting the third-best time and Sebastian Vettel fifth quickest, the pair sandwiched by Renault’s Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard’s rookie team-mate Romain Grosjean brought an ironic smile to the faces of many in the pit lane (even to that of the newly promoted caretaker team boss Bob Bell) by going off at the turn 17 left-hander that has gained such notoriety in recent weeks as the scene of his predecessor Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate crash in last year’s Singapore race.

Grosjean’s blunder brought out a red flag that stopped the session for 11 minutes and split it into two roughly equal segments, with all the quick times being set in the second half. McLaren duo Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton emerged sixth and seventh fastest ahead of BMW’s Robert Kubica, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Kazuki Nakajima in the quicker of the Williams cars.

The 3.15-mile city centre street track was dusty and short on grip from the outset, and seemed to improve only slightly as the 90-minute session progressed. That, coupled with some modifications to the kerbs at various corners and a tightening of the narrow turn 10 chicane known as the Singapore Sling, resulted in a best lap time some five seconds slower than the 2008 P1 benchmark.

Kovalainen was the first to demonstrate how tricky the conditions were with a spin after 37 minutes, before Grosjean brought the session to a halt with his miscue at turn 17. The young Frenchman’s Renault got sideways under acceleration out of the left-hander and clipped the wall with his right-rear wheel, before spinning lazily across the track and nosing gently into the inside barrier. The damage was minor, but – as has become common knowledge in recent weeks during the race-fix scandal – there is no crane to rescue stricken cars on the exit of that corner so a red flag was required.

At that stage Button had just taken over from Webber at the top of the timing charts with a 1m51.589s lap, while Kovalainen led the McLaren challenge in third on a 1m52.331s. The Finn briefly took the top spot shortly after the session resumed but was soon relegated by Button, who moved 0.5s clear of the pack with a 1m50.703s with 24 minutes remaining.

Barrichello came on strong in the final minutes, eclipsing Button with a 1m50.549s and shaving another 0.4s off that to post the morning’s best time of 1m50.179s. Vettel spent the first half of the session in the garage as he again sought to keep his mileage down due to engine concerns, but was immediately up to speed once he emerged, while Nico Rosberg found himself shuffled down the order after featuring in the top five early on.