"Singapore is one of the hardest races of the entire season. The circuit layout is very bumpy and you're fighting the car all the time. You're continually in the corners and the only place where you get a breather for a couple of seconds is on the start-finish straight.

"After this, you also have the strange timetable that means we work late, go to bed late and wake up in the afternoon.

"There are lots of bumps, [curbs] and bits of track where you have to keep some margin for mistakes because the walls are very close -- especially in the last sector. I always enjoy driving there and, although the race is very long and demanding, it's a good track for racing."

Those were the words of Renault's Robert Kubica as he previewed the upcoming race to reporters, and it's an apt description for a circuit that has few comparisons to anything else on the schedule.

Monaco is typically referenced as a similar track, but when the night element is added, it becomes an entirely different animal for a driver.

It's certainly not the fastest track on the calendar, as drivers are in their top gear for any significant amount of time just twice per lap. The Marina Bay circuit is also rather unforgiving, with 23 turns and a relatively rough surface (some of which has been smoothed for this year's event).

Add in the fact that there are seven drivers, including Michael Schumacher, who have yet to compete at night in Formula One, and you have all the makings of what promises to be a great race.

But it may not go far in determining the driver's championship.

Last year, four of the top five title contenders from 2010 finished among the top five in the race.

Points leader Mark Webber was the only outsider, retiring after 45 laps.

The 2008 winner, Fernando Alonso, seems to have all the momentum right now, having just won at Monza. He's finished on the podium at Singapore both times, but of course his 2008 finish was the result of one of the biggest controversies in F1 history as he was aided by team orders.

He's also now part of a Ferrari squad that has never collected a single point at Singapore, although the team did qualify well here in the inaugural event.

Qualifying will likely be crucial. Lewis Hamilton won from the pole last year, and the past 10 events of this season have been won from a front-row starting spot, the longest single-season stretch since 1997, which also saw 10 straight winners start from the top two positions.

A man who has qualified well in both years at Singapore finds himself once again back in the Formula One mix.

Nick Heidfeld, a longtime Sauber driver, replaces the struggling Pedro de la Rosa on the grid starting this weekend. In both of his previous appearances at Singapore, he has reached Q3 in qualifying, but that would prove a mighty task in 2010, as Heidfeld will not have much time to become accustomed to the team's car for this season.

Still, Heidfeld has been tabbed as an underrated driver who can make the most of the car he's given, and a finish near the points is possible. After all, he has the dubious distinction of earning the most career F1 points without a race win.

With five races to go, recent history says that this is Webber's title to lose. Since 2001, only once has the leader in the standings with five races remaining failed to win the title. That was in 2007, when Lewis Hamilton, the leader with five to go, finished second in the world championship after disastrous outings in his final two races.