Piastri sets pace in chaotic Singapore GP practice session

Championship leader Oscar Piastri went fastest Friday in a chaotic second practice session for the Singapore Grand Prix punctuated by two crashes, red flags and a bizarre pit lane shunt.

Piastri sped round in 1min 30.714sec, 0.132sec ahead of RB’s Isack Hadjar with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull third just 0.11sec further back.

It was a return to form for the Australian, who crashed last time out in Baku but managed to avoid the trouble at the Marina Bay Circuit to top the time sheets.

“I found my feet on the medium at the end there and then the soft felt good,” said Piastri, who lamented that 22 minutes of the session were lost to stoppages.

“Obviously not much representative race running,” said the Australian, who leads the title race by 25 points from his McLaren teammate Lando Norris, and by 69 over Max Verstappen in third.

“But the car’s been in a good place and I feel like I’ve learned a lot today. That’s the aim of practice. So it’s been a good day.”

The session was first halted by George Russell crashing his Mercedes at turn 16.

When the cars got going again, RB’s Liam Lawson found the barriers on the penultimate corner to bring out another red flag.

As cars vied for position in the pit lane for the restart Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari was released into Norris, shunting the McLaren into the pit lane wall.

The McLaren was hastily pushed back into its box to fit a new front wing with Norris eventually fifth fastest.

He was sandwiched by the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso in fourth and Lance Stroll in sixth.

“Cost the team a bit of money, which is a shame,” said Norris, who was a dominant winner at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix.

“Just a difficult day for me, not feeling too great with the car. I’m missing all of the feelings I had here last year. So plenty of things to work on. Just a bad day.

“Oscar’s quick so I’ve got nothing to complain about, bar just not doing a very good job,” said Norris.

Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz, Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top 10.

Verstappen has won the last two races, in Monza and Baku, to edge into the title picture with seven races and three sprints to go.

But four-time world champion Verstappen, runner-up to Norris last year, has never won in Singapore in eight previous attempts.

“We’re just getting up to speed with things, but the car was not too bad. In general I was quite satisfied,” said Verstappen.

“We definitely need a bit more pace to fight up at the front tomorrow.”

Russell was at a loss to explain his crash.

“A bit of a weird one to be honest,” said the Mercedes driver.

“Thankfully I went in front-end on and didn’t do too much damage but it was game over.”

The race was on Thursday declared an official Formula One “Heat Hazard”, invoking a new rule to help drivers beat the tropical heat in Singapore.

It means drivers will be able to wear newly developed cooling vests because ambient temperatures are expected to be 31 Celsius or higher.

Many drivers were seen trying out the vests and their associated maze of cooling tubes under their fireproof race suits.

Agence France-Presse