F1 Singapore GP: Leclerc leads FP1 by 0.076s from Norris

Charles Leclerc headlined the first Formula 1 practice session of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, beating Lando Norris by a 0.076-second margin.

Norris spent the early laps turning the pace up on the medium tyres, setting a 1m33.903s and following that up with a 1m33.199s, a time that went largely untouched for the next five minutes.

The Ferraris were circulating on the hard tyre amid their early laps, which Leclerc took to a 1m32.702s to displace Norris from the top of the times.

Norris then responded on the soft compound and set a 1m32.165s as a benchmark for the performance runs, a time nobody was able to beat on their opening runs, although Carlos Sainz got within one-thousandth of the Briton’s lap on his first attempt with the softest compound.

On a second run with the same set of tyres, Norris subsequently beat his own time with a 1m31.839s to raise the bar even further. The Ferraris again got close, Leclerc just 0.037s shy, and Sainz a tenth outside of the McLaren driver’s effort.

Leclerc took what amounted to a third attempt on his soft tyres and found almost eight hundredths of a second over Norris to go fastest, a time that remained unbeaten as the drivers switched to the harder suite of tyres for the final stages of the session.

As FP1 was held in daylight conditions, it offered largely unrepresentative conditions in comparison to those expected for the night-time qualifying and race.

The early laps were characterised by runs on the hard and medium tyre, as the circuit was notably dusty throughout the opening phase of the session.

With Norris sandwiched between them, Ferrari had got both cars into the top three as Sainz was third-fastest – over a tenth-and-a-half over championship leader Max Verstappen.

Yuki Tsunoda took his denim-liveried RB to fifth fastest, exactly 0.5s off the pace, as Oscar Piastri’s session was marginally delayed by a fix to his rear-left upright after McLaren detected an issue.

The Australian also survived a brush with the wall at the rear right, causing little but minor cosmetic damage to his wheel cover.

Daniel Ricciardo was seventh fastest over Alex Albon, while Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 – the Frenchman just 0.003s faster than Franco Colapinto.