Lewis Hamilton was fastest in first practice for this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver topped a session for the first time this season after setting a 43.033 to go eight hundredths ahead of Max Verstappen, with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc third.
Mercedes go into this weekend cautiously optimistic as they look to be on the pace and despite recent races in Marina Bay being difficult for Mercedes, they have been stronger at low speed high downforce circuits. Leclerc ended the session four tenths off Hamilton and ahead of Sergio Perez by four-tenths
The Mercedes driver, who had complained about the difficult driveability of his car early on, bolted on a fresh set of red-walled soft tyres and ran fastest by a slender 0.084 seconds. But Verstappen had set the early pace by a big margin, a second ahead of Fernando Alonso at the halfway stage.
Leclerc was four-tenths off but the Ferrari driver could have significant room for improvement after missing much of the first half of the session due to a brake issue, which became evident on his opening out-lap.
The session is not wholly reprehensive taking place at sunset and the street circuit set to see rapid track evolution throughout the weekend. But it could point to another close weekend between the top three teams.
George Russell put his Mercedes fifth he was a second behind his teammate Hamilton but went nearly six tenths faster. The Spaniard was one of several drivers to explore the limits of the circuit as the sport returned to Singapore for the first time since 2019.
Russell meanwhile appeared to lack the same pace, until set-up changes were made but moved up in the second half of the session. Russell’s struggles appeared to be part of a wider lack of pace for Mercedes, with Hamilton also having been off the pace until his late lap set up a possible three-way contest for pole on Saturday.
Lance Stroll brought out the red flag after clouting the wall at Turn Five, despite trying to recover to the pit lane, but finished eighth. Esteban Ocon was seventh going four-tenths faster than the Canadian, who spilt the two Frenchman after going four hundredths ahead of Fernando Alonso, who rounded out the top ten.
However the two-time champion who has shown good pace running as high as second early on, saw his running cut short with a gearbox oil leak. Alpine and their main rivals McLaren have brought major upgrades, as they fight for fourth in the constructors.
Alpine’s is a new floor; McLaren’s a major series of changes around the side pods and floor design. But the session for McLaren appeared to be about understanding the upgrade, Lando Norris was only nineteenth with the upgraded package, nearly a second off Daniel Ricciardo.
Sebastian Vettel was eleventh nearly four tenths ahead of Ricciardo, the Australian just pipping the Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas by a thousandth. Kevin Magnussen was three tenths behind in fourteenth, putting his Haas half a tenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda.
Alex Albon made his return to Williams after under going emergency surgery at Monza for appendicitis before then suffering respiratory failure. The British Thai driver went sixteenth going ahead of Guanyu Zhou by almost four tenths. Mick Schumacher was eighteenth two tenths behind Zhou, with Nicolas Latifi propping up the fu
