Lewis Hamilton narrowly beat title rival Felipe Massa in first practice at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The Englishman set a fastest lap of one minute 45.518 seconds in his McLaren to beat Massa's Ferrari by 0.080secs on the Asian city's new street track.
Hamilton was the man to beat throughout the session, which was held under lights in preparation for Formula One's first ever night race on Sunday.
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was third ahead of McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.
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He is just a point ahead of Massa going into Sunday's race but his driving during the first session made it clear just how determined he is to extend that lead this weekend.
Renault's Fernando Alonso set the initial pace as the drivers began to familiarise themselves with the circuit.
But Hamilton, sliding the McLaren aggressively around Singapore's wall-lined corners, soon displaced him as soon as he began to do some serious running and stayed at the top of the list, progressively lowering his times, throughout the session.
Very quickly the established quick drivers moved to the top of the times, with Hamilton heading Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen, the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica and Alonso once all the drivers had done a couple of runs.
That was pretty much the order when the first 90-minute session ended, although Massa sneaked ahead of Raikkonen when the Finn opted to return to the pits rather than finish a lap that looked like it was going to challenge Hamilton.
And Williams's Nico Rosberg sneaked ahead of Alonso into sixth.
Red Bull's Mark Webber was the first driver to have a crash, catching a bump going in too fast at Turn 18, the corner after the track comes out from under a grandstand, just a few minutes into the session.
There were a number of spins and off-track moments but Honda's Rubens Barrichello was the only other driver to hit the wall, losing control at the final corner later in the session.
Webber said there were a number of parts of the track that would challenge the drivers, and that some changes might need to be made ahead of Saturday and Sunday.
"It's a bit bumpier than I thought it was going to be," Webber said before his crash. "We might need to move the pit lane entry a bit - with the white line filtering us in there's going to be quite a speed differential between the guys coming in and the guys still on the track.
"[There's] a little bit of detail here and there but once we get going in anger it's going to be a challenge.
"At Turn 10 - people are going to be giving that a bit of respect for a while. That wall is quite close so if you get it wrong you're going to go in there."
Results from first practice at Singapore Grand Prix:
1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one minute 45.518 seconds
2 Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 1:45.598
3 K Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:45.961
4 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes 1:46.463
5 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:46.618
6 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:46.710
7 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1:46.725
8. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:46.964
9. Nelson Piquet Jr (Brz) Renault 1:47.175
10. Jenson Button (GB) Honda 1:47.277
11. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:47.570
12. Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota 1:47.662
13. Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 1:47.706
14. Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:48.097
15. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 1:48.517
16. Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda 1:48.725
17. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari 1:48.839
18. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari 1:48.906
19. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:49.06 4
20. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 1:53.703
(BBC)
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