Charles Leclerc topped the timing sheets in FP1 in Singapore, ahead of Lando Norris and teammate Carlos Sainz, while Mercedes and Sergio Perez seemed to struggle.
Another weekend at a street circuit got underway, this time through the streets of Singapore. As usual, the street tracks are always dirty and “green”.
Despite that, the lap times were almost as fast as those of last year’s FP1 session, after only 10 minutes. Lando Norris was the fastest with medium tires, 0.514s ahead of Max Verstappen. Carlos Sainz was third, with a gap of 0.817s. All three of them were on mediums.
Sergio Perez caused the first yellow flag of the session as he went wide at the last chicane, but he managed to rejoin with no further issues.
Charles Leclerc then got up to P1 with hard tires, 0.497s ahead of Norris still on mediums. Sainz was third, 0.774s behind. Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto were doing great in P4 and P6, with George Russell sandwiched between them.
Norris was the first to fit the soft tires and in his first lap, his McLaren seemed nervous on corner exits and pretty oversteery. Despite that, he clocked the fastest time, 0.537s ahead of Leclerc.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton also fitted soft tires to simulate a qualifying run. The Dutchman was second, 0.216s behind Norris, while the seven-time world champion was third.
Albon went faster than Hamilton and put his Williams in P3, just a few milliseconds off of Verstappen. Leclerc was also slower than Albon, while Yuki Tsunoda went second fastest, just 0.098s behind Norris. Then, Sainz clocked a time just 0.001s slower than the McLaren’s driver.
Norris lowered his time once more, extending his gap to Sainz to 0.327s. Leclerc got closer, 0.037s behind the McLaren. Verstappen also improved and moved up to P3, but Sainz took that position back a few seconds later.
Leclerc then managed to go first fastest, just 0.076s ahead of Norris. After that, the teams focused on race pace simulations. It is worth noting Tsunoda ended in P5, Daniel Ricciardo in P7, Albon in P8, Fernando Alonso, and Esteban Ocon in P9 and P10. Both Mercedes seemed to struggle in P12 and P16 as well as Perez, who was only in P14 after a solid weekend in Baku.