(Motorsports news) A pair of 1-2 finishes in Singapore Grand Prix practice topped off a successful Friday for Ferrari, as both Red Bull drivers struggled with the handling of their Formula 1 cars. In the first free practice session, Charles Leclerc stormed to the top of the order, beating teammate Carlos Sainz by just 0.078s, albeit in an unrepresentative session in terms of track conditions as daylight had yet to fade.
The FP1 practice was notable for a number of track visits from Singapore’s lizard population, which disrupted some of the drivers’ laps, however one of the reptilian intruders was arguably too courageous and was claimed by one of the cars at Turn 9. This did not continue throughout FP2, as night fell and circuit temperatures began to drop.
Although Leclerc intended to set a new fastest time, his bid to outrun Sainz on soft tyres fell apart at the final two turns, where a miscalculation cost him the narrow advantage he had built up over the previous two sectors. The Monegasque was only 0.018s away from crossing the finish line.
Although Leclerc intended to set a new fastest time, his bid to outrun Sainz on soft tyres fell apart at the final two turns, where a miscalculation cost him the narrow advantage he had built up over the previous two sectors. The Monegasque was only 0.018s away from crossing the finish line.
Ferrari’s dominance in the Singapore’s sessions contrasted with Red Bull’s troubles, as neither Max Verstappen nor Sergio Perez appeared to be at comfortable with their RB19 machines during the Friday sessions. Although Verstappen set the third-fastest time in FP1, he dipped to eighth in FP2, while Perez set the seventh-fastest time in both. Here’s a rundown of what we discovered during Friday’s practice sessions in Singapore.
In that first practice session, Leclerc found inspiration amid the sweat, clocking in at 1m33.350s, just under a tenth faster than his teammate, as Ferrari managed to carry over its Monza prowess into the early Singapore reckoning. However, the two were significantly more evenly matched in the second session, having improved their performance on the cooler track surface.
Sainz beat Leclerc’s FP1 standard on a set of mediums, then increased the pace with a 1m33.213s. However, by the end of the laps on the middle compound, Leclerc managed to overtake the Spaniard and become the first driver to break into the 1m32s. Although Sainz would go faster on his first run on the softs, Leclerc was faster in the first two sectors and three-tenths faster before the final four corners of the circuit.
He lost two-tenths of a second in the Turns 16-17 chicane at the end of the new acceleration zone created by the elimination of the bends beneath the underpass. A stab at the throttle into the final two bends resulted in the Ferrari indulging in a burst of erratic behavior, which was enough to keep Sainz in first place.
