F1 | Singapore, Free Practice 1: Leclerc wins duel with McLaren

The first free practice session under the lights of Singapore ended with the best time from Charles Leclerc, who asked for the afternoon session in the lead, stopping the clock at 1:31.763, obtained with about fifteen minutes to go in the session on the soft tyres.

A time that allowed him to overtake Lando Norris, second at about 76 thousandths, even if the references, at this moment, are still relative: in addition to the fact that it is only the first session, the track temperatures were still quite high and many drivers could have improved in the final minutes, but the choice of some to focus on long runs has diversified the programs a bit. Norris, among other things, was also one of the first to start the run with a greater quantity of fuel on board for the simulation of the long stint.

It is worth noting that McLaren chose to run only on the soft and medium compound tyres, while Ferrari, like Mercedes, chose to keep a set of yellow-banded tyres and use a set of hard ones instead, with which they also completed the long stint.

Third fastest time for Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, who in the first part of the session dedicated himself to comparative tests on the front end, testing the front wings brought by the Reds here to Singapore, including the new one that should guarantee greater load on the front and new setup opportunities, especially on these tracks that require a lot of downforce. The Spaniard, who during the session reported some difficulty in managing the brakes like in Baku, finished about a tenth from Norris and almost two tenths from his teammate, ahead of Max Verstappen, who finished the session with the fourth fastest time.

Good Yuki Tsunoda, fifth with the Racing Bulls that sports a special livery in collaboration with one of the sponsors: the Japanese finished in fifth place about half a second from the top, while the other VCARB01, that of Daniel Ricciardo, recorded the seventh best time. Generally the car from Faenza has shown good behavior in the slow corners during the season and the bottom that debuted a few races ago should be more effective on this type of corners rather than on the fast ones, where the feeling has not yet completely convinced the drivers. Splitting the two Racing Bulls was Oscar Piastri with the other McLaren, who interrupted his long run at the end after touching the wall in the second sector, but without major consequences.

Closing out the top 10 are Alex Albon’s Williams, who showed up here with a new technical package available only for the Anglo-Thai driver’s car given the limited units, Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine in tenth place. It will undoubtedly be an interesting Grand Prix for the French team, which during the year has often struggled to get the most out of the A524 in terms of traction, overheating the rear axle.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The first Mercedes is Lewis Hamilton’s, only twelfth at about a second from Leclerc, with the Englishman who will have to work on the setup having suffered too much from understeer: during the long run the technicians also asked him several times to keep an eye on the values ​​in the traction phase, a sign that something still needs to be found in terms of balance. The other W15, George Russell’s, is sixteenth.

The two Haas and the two Saubers close the group: the Swiss team’s car has shown several times during the season that it suffers on circuits with bumpy asphalt like the one in Singapore and the drivers themselves were not optimistic on the eve that Singapore could be a particularly positive weekend for the Hinwil team.