The Friday in F1 Singapore GP saw two contenders stretch out ahead in the field, as the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes struggled to get upto speed.
The day to night conditions in F1 Singapore GP at Marina Bay Circuit on Friday, didn’t change the order by much as Ferrari and McLaren, especially at the hands of Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris, stretched out a good margin from the rest of the field in the pole and win battle.
Both Leclerc and Norris looked in the game after setting the pace in FP1 and FP2 respectively. Both their teammates Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri – admittedly – struggled in the game. While the former had multiple issues including brakes, the latter just didn’t get enough grip to hook-up a good lap.
That dropped them in the clutches of Mercedes and Red Bull, where all the four drivers did not enjoy the conditions or the car. While George Russell had a minor off at the end of FP2, Lewis Hamilton reckons that it will be difficult for them to get into Q3 considering the competition around.
The grip issues hampered both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez too, where the Dutchman found himself outside the Top 10 after not getting a clean lap in. It was struggle for Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll too, who will have strong fight from multiple F1 teams.
Norris: “Yeah, pace is good. I’m feeling good, it was also a nice lap. I think we’re doing what we expect, I guess, to be up at the front and to be there with Ferrari. But it was a very nice lap and Charles is only few tenths behind. I was hoping to have a much bigger gap than what I had, honestly, which means they’re quick, it means Ferrari are very, very fast. But, yeah, things are going well so far. Yeah, actually that was my first comment to the whole team – it just felt good straight away. To be honest, I think we’re always pretty good at that – I think one of our strengths is just arriving and performing well, but then we tend not to progress as much as some of the other teams.
“We’ll see, it’s going to be close but I think we’re in a decent position. I feel like there’s not a lot we can change, honestly, but just trying to perfect a little bit, try and iron out a couple of little things and push it in a slightly quicker direction. It’s all we can do. Charles is very good at street circuits – we’ve seen in Baku, we’ve seen in Monaco what he’s capable of doing. I’m sure he’s probably quite happy with his lap. If he wasn’t happy with his lap, I’m quite worried for tomorrow. It was a nice lap from me, not a lot more in it, honestly, so I felt like I got a lot out of Friday. But normally I prefer not being so good and then always having a bit extra going into Saturday! A good start to the weekend, I think we’re in a good place, and if we can keep it up then I’ll be happy.”
Leclerc: “It felt good, but there is still some work to be done. The car didn’t exactly feel like I wanted so, yeah, we still have to try and improve it. And of course with the forecast for the rest of the weekend, it’s a little bit up and down so we will have to adapt very quickly, so we cannot rely on a good Friday. But it’s been a good Friday and it’s better to have a good one than a bad one. It’s a good starting point, but we still have to push forward. Just a bit more balance in the car, putting everything together in terms of driving and then we should be in a good place for tomorrow. I think we are in the mix. But let’s see – I just hope the picture doesn’t change much for tomorrow. I would be very surprised if we have the same advantage as we had today, I mean the same gap from me to the third place. I really believe everyone will be much closer tomorrow and it will be much tighter. Then we will have to understand if it changes the pecking order or not.”
Verstappen: “Difficult. It’s just not having the grip that we would like, so we have a few things to look at there. It’s less of a problem, to be honest. I was not really struggling with the bumps or the kerbs, just general grip. I think we improved a little bit, but still we are lacking quite a lot of balance. It’s quite difficult out there to put a lap together, [so] it’s not looking great at the moment.”
Hamilton: “We’ve tried everything set-up wise and nothing seems to work with the set-up, so definitely very challenging. We’re really giving it everything and then you find out you’re a second off. I think ultimately [we’re] just a little bit lost and we’re not really sure where to put the car. At the moment, I won’t be going into Q3.”
Alonso: “Every lap in Singapore is a risky one and it was an intense FP1 and FP2. We are struggling a little bit around this circuit with the characteristics of our car. We did think the same in Baku though and we managed to maximise the points there, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Both Visa Cash App RB and Williams F1 drivers looked to be on-song on Friday. The former had Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda in good spirits inside the Top 10 as they felt the car suited the Marina Bay circuit more than the last couple of circuits that they have visited.
On Williams side, both Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto felt good on the harder tyres, but were wary of pace on the soft compound especially in the qualifying battle. It was two halves for Alpine duo, where Esteban Ocon felt a touch better than Pierre Gasly this time.
For Haas, it was so-so situation as Kevin Magnussen made his return after serving his one race ban. He was around the Top 10, much like Nico Hulkenberg who found a bit more pace in FP2 to be 10th. The Kick Sauber pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will have another mountain to climb.
Ricciardo: “It was a really good day for both of us. I think we’re pretty happy with the car, [there’s] always some fine-tuning but it was nice to just see ourselves up the pointy end. It looks like so far at least we’ve got a decent package here, so that’s nice. The last time we had high downforce was… Okay, maybe Zandvoort. I was thinking more Budapest, maybe this package was Budapest, ish, and we were competitive there. Maybe it’s a little bit more suited to our car at the moment, running the bigger wings and this style of circuit. We actually thought we would be good in Baku last week, and we weren’t, [with the] much lower downforce. Maybe it’s that the high downforce set-up is a little kinder to us.”
Albon: “To be honest, the car doesn’t feel amazing, but I think that’s good because it means we have more lap time to find. We were good on the harder compound tyres but struggled a bit on the Softs, so we just need to figure it out. The pace is good, and the car feels way better than last year, so that’s a positive. With the upgrades, it’s hard to fully delve into them so far in these sessions, however, we’ll look at the data tonight and come back stronger tomorrow.”
Hulkenberg: “It didn’t look great this morning, but I didn’t get a proper run on the softs so this afternoon showed a bit more of a representative picture, but again it’s very fine margins and it’s very tight in the midfield. I felt okay in the evening with the cooler track temperature, felt the car beneath me a bit more and that’s a good foundation to go from. It will come down to execution and how clean can you produce the laps to squeeze everything out. I think if we do a perfect job, Q3 could be possible.”
Ocon: “The pace looked relatively promising this morning in Free Practice 1 but seemed to drop off for us in Free Practice 2 even though the car felt similar between the two sessions. We need to debrief as a team and understand why that is and aim to come back stronger tomorrow. We were expecting a little more in terms of pace from the car but that was not the case today. We will give it our best to improve the car and hopefully be up in the mix in Qualifying.”
Bottas: “It was a challenging day on track today with a lack of overall car performance. We struggled to find the right balance, as we lacked the consistency we were looking for. We made some changes between the two sessions, but I feel we made a step backwards: we’ll work hard overnight get back on track, improve and make the car more stable and drivable, so we can find that extra performance for FP3 and take a step forward for qualifying.”
Here’s how Friday practice in F1 Singapore GP panned out
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