Charles Leclerc gave he and Ferrari an early shot of momentum by topping the timings in the opening Singapore GP practice session.
Both Ferraris made the top three as Lando Norris split Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, on a weekend where Norris is looking to further move into Drivers’ Championship contention. Daniel Ricciardo joined VCARB team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in the top 10 on a race weekend being billed as potentially his last with the team.
Ferrari lay down early marker at Singapore Grand Prix
With FP1 getting underway in daylight conditions, Zhou Guanyu was quickly asking for a change of helmet, with the visor “too dark”, while Oscar Piastri – the winner last time out in Baku – was facing a delay with McLaren spotting an issue on the rear-left corner of his MCL38 which they had not seen before and needed assessing.
Lando Norris was out there in the sister McLaren, sporting its ‘Legend Reborn’ livery for Singapore, a nod to the title-collecting MP4 era. He was leading the way in the early stages of FP1.
The medium tyre was the compound of choice for the opening runs as Verstappen briefly went P1, only for Norris to deliver a 1:33.903 to go half a second clear as the pace continued to ramp up.
It was proving a tricky start to the Singapore race weekend for Formula 1’s Australians, with VCARB struggling to remove an aero rake from his car. VCARB, like McLaren, were also running a special livery, a denim-inspired one.
On a more positive note for Piastri, the issue on his McLaren cost him just under 15 minutes only of his session. However, on his first push lap with the hards, he was forced to back off as Perez took to the escape road, triggering the yellow flags and returning to the track in front of Piastri.
Valtteri Bottas meanwhile was upset after feeling he got “blocked” by Franco Colapinto heading onto the main straight.
Leclerc was enjoying that hard tyre as he shot up to P1, half a second clear of Norris, but at the halfway point, all eyes were back on Norris as he bolted on the softs, clocking a 1:32.165 to return to P1, half a second clear. Verstappen was two-tenths short of Norris and Hamilton half a second after their first push on the softs. Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda soon muscled their way into the top three.
There were more blocking dramas for Bottas, Perez the driver this time to irk the Sauber racer, before Perez felt the tables had been turned by Williams’ Alex Albon, waving the hand of frustration.
F1 2024 head-to-head battles going into Singapore GP
Just like on the hard tyres, Leclerc and Ferrari were liking that soft C5 rubber too as he delivered a 1:31.763, squeezing ahead of Norris by 0.076s.
Tsunoda now was unwillingly joining the impeding finger-pointing, exclaiming “of course Stroll, man” as he came up behind Lance in the Aston Martin.
Hamilton, now down to P12, was complaining about something different, as he battled “too much understeer” in his Mercedes. Piastri meanwhile scrubbed much of the logos and branding off his rear-right after whacking the wall at the exit of Turn 10, the low-speed nature of that mishap a blessing as McLaren assessed and sent him back out.
Perez was also having difficulties, claiming he could not “stop the car with the front right”.
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