Friday Report - Ferrari maintain 1-2 lead in FP2

By Peter Habicht

Ferrari was again 1-2 in tonight’s second free practice at Singapore, with Carlos Sainz setting a time of 1:32.120s and teammate Charles Leclerc just 0.018s behind. Mercedes’ George Russell was third fastest ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and fellow British teammate Lewis Hamilton.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was sixth quickest, with the Redbulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen setting the seventh and eighth fastest laps while struggling with rear traction. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was next quickest followed by Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas to make up the top ten.

Teams ran the harder followed by softer compound tires on a track surface nearly 25% cooler than FP1, in conditions critical to understanding better what will resemble those in qualifying tomorrow and racing on Sunday.

Following a difficult session for both himself and Perez, Verstappen shared how he felt it went: “Little bit worse than expected today, just struggling a lot with the balance of the car. We tried quite a few things in FP2, some worked, some didn’t. Never really got the car together so its quite a few things to figure out.”

Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg was 11th quickest in the session followed by AlphaTauri’s Liam Lawson, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston’s Lance Stroll. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was 15th fastest ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

The Williams of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon were at the bottom of the timing sheets, with the Thai driver experiencing power unit problems and retiring his car less than 20 minutes into the session.

Free Practice three begins at 5:30p tomorrow.