Singapore GP 2024
SEPTEMBER 21, 2024
Practice 3 Report - Norris out front
© McLaren
Lando Norris set a blistering pace to claim top spot in the final practice session for the Singapore Grand Prix. The McLaren driver was the only one able to lap bellow the 1m30s and did it comfortably, leaving second fastest George Russell nearly half a second behind!
In a more traditional afternoon session for Singapore, which was also briefly halted to remove a bit of local wildlife from the tarmac, the status quo was certainly different than the one seen on Friday, the only constant being Norris’ setting the fastest time.
Norris, second in the championship, was very quick both on the Medium and the Soft compounds but Ferrari simply couldn’t make any substantial progress on the faster tyre. Leclerc, who had been the quickest while everyone was running with the Medium tyres was only 5th fastest at the end of the session, more than 0.9s behind Norris and clearly very frustrated.
The Monegasque driver complained “I just have no grip” after telling the team they had to improve the feeling in the car, as it was terrible as it was, on the Soft tyre. Team mate Carlos Sainz, who was closer to Leclerc than on Friday, was second quickest on the Medium tyre but also failed to improve a lot on the Softs, dropping to 6th position, over 0.1s behind his team mate.
For McLaren the other good news was that Oscar Piastri was much happier with the balance of his car than on the first day of running, the Australian saying right at the start of the session that, “the feeling is already better than yesterday”. That showed on his lap time but even though he ended the session in P3, the youngster was still almost 0.8s behind Norris, a staggering gap on a circuit where driver confidence is essential.
The bit of bad news for McLaren was that Max Verstappen lapped much faster than on Friday, the Dutchman taking 1.5s off his FP2 time in this session. On the Medium compound the World Champion was actually slightly quicker than Norris but, like the Ferrari drivers, was unable to make much progress once he put the Soft tyres on his RB20.
The car was clearly understeering too much for the Verstappen's liking, so he ended up the session in P4, but almost 0.9s away from his championship rival. Things went far worse for Pérez, who was not as competitive on the Medium tyre and struggled to put together a decent lap on the Soft tyre, the Mexican slipping to P15 at the end of the session, exactly 0.9s behind his team mate!
George Russell was the positive surprise of the session, as he split the two McLaren at the front of the field. The British driver was pushing hard, twice going down escape roads as he struggled to get his braking points right and also having a huge moment in Turn 16 earlier in the session. His risk taking paid off, though, as he was 0.3s faster than Piastri to claim second place.
Team mate Lewis Hamilton was unable to match him, dropping to P7, a massive 0.7s behind the younger Brit. A big slide exiting Turn 5 made the rear tyres of his Mercedes overheat early in the lap and he never recovered from that.
Williams continued its impressive run with Alex Albon narrowly beating Franco Colapinto for 8th place, a great result for the youngster, who’s still running the previous suspension spec this weekend. Albon also had a light touch against the wall in Turn 15 that punctured his left front tyre, costing him precious track time, but the British team seems to have the fourth quickest car this weekend and by quite a margin.
Fernando Alonso completed the top ten, while both VCARB runners were unable to make a lot of progress from FP2. Once again Yuki Tsunoda was the fastest of the Italian team’s drivers, in P11 and just 0.032s away from Alonso’s best time, but Daniel Ricciardo slipped down to 17th place after lapping more than 0.4s slower than his young Japanese team mate.