{"id":796991,"date":"2026-10-09T12:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796991\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T12:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T12:22:11","slug":"f1-singapore-gp-russell-tops-fp1-with-verstappen-also-impressing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796991\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Singapore GP: Russell tops FP1 with Verstappen also impressing"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> came fastest in the only free practice outing of Formula 1\u2019s Singapore Grand Prix, but Max Verstappen<\/a> was half a second quicker than anyone on medium tyres.<\/p>\n

This was the only non-competitive running on the sprint Singapore weekend, albeit held in unrepresentative conditions \u2013 53C track temperature \u2013 with regards to both upcoming qualifying sessions and the main race, which will be held at night.<\/p>\n

Everyone therefore rushed out on track when the light went green at the end of the\u00a0pitlane, with all cars but the\u00a0Cadillacs on hard tyres, and started chasing the limits.<\/p>\n

With the white-walled compound,\u00a0Kimi Antonelli set the pace in 1m33.830s, outpacing Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s Charles Leclerc<\/a> by 0.034s and Mercedes<\/a> team-mate George Russell by 0.056s.<\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar<\/a> was fourth, having complained that his Red Bull bottomed too much, especially in braking zones, and his throttle pedal was slippery. Oscar Piastri<\/a>, Lando Norris<\/a> and Lewis Hamilton<\/a> followed within 0.6s of the benchmark.<\/p>\n

Everyone else was more than a second down, starting with midfield leader\u00a0Nico Hulkenberg<\/a> for Audi<\/a>. Verstappen was down in ninth, followed by Pierre Gasly<\/a> and Fernando Alonso<\/a>; Liam Lawson<\/a> and Esteban Ocon<\/a> were another couple of tenths adrift.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: James Sutton \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Hulkenberg however stopped on the main straight with 20 minutes remaining, indicating on the radio: \u201cSomething bad happened on the gearbox.\u201d He was pulled into the pitlane while the virtual safety car neutralised the session.<\/p>\n

Cars kept lapping on hard tyres, with Lawson jumping to ninth ahead of\u00a0Verstappen, until softer rubber was fitted on for the last 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Despite running the older Mercedes specification, Russell was fastest by far on soft tyres, setting a 1m32.274s. This was two tenths faster than\u00a0Leclerc and Norris, while Hamilton and Piastri were half a second adrift. They were the only five drivers to run the soft compound, except the Cadillac racers, who propped up the order.<\/p>\n

Verstappen led the medium-tyre running in sixth with a 1m33.006s, half a second faster than championship leader Antonelli, who ran into the Turn 16 escape road on his final flying lap. Hadjar was seven tenths slower than his Red Bull team-mate.<\/p>\n

Also on medium tyres,\u00a0Gasly led the midfield for Alpine<\/a> on a 1m34.038s, with Racing Bulls<\/a>\u2019 Lawson one tenth down and Haas\u2019 Oliver Bearman<\/a> three tenths adrift. Aston Martin, Williams<\/a> and Audi were closely matched, albeit further down the order \u2013 but the green car\u2019s progress was entirely down to Alonso, given Lance Stroll<\/a> reported problems with his brakes.<\/p>\n

F1 Singapore GP FP1 results<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell came fastest in the only free practice outing of Formula 1\u2019s Singapore Grand Prix, but Max…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[262089,372,59,9307,67596,6964,67497,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-f1-singapore-gp-russell-tops-fp1-with-verstappen-also-impressing","tag-formula-1","tag-gb","tag-george-russell","tag-marina-bay-street-circuit","tag-mercedes","tag-singapore-gp","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}