Official F1 Journal Singapore Grand Prix Friday round up: Free Practice 1 & Free Practice 220/9/2024  Charles Leclerc (pictured) during FP2. Credit: Clive Mason via Getty Images For the second time in two weekends Formula 1 was ready for action after brilliant action at Baku to the sensational Singapore streets,for round 18 of the Formula One World Championship in 2024. Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 would take place on Friday to kick start the weekend's action ahead of qualifying day on Saturday and of course Grand Prix Sunday where the points of the weekend are up for grabs and what important points they could be for the championship contenders. Free Practice 1 taking place in the afternoon daylight around the Marina Bay street circuit and it would be delightful session for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc as the Monegasque driver, who is third in the championship, was fastest. Leclerc was less than a tenth quicker than Lando Norris of McLaren. Carlos Sainz made it two Ferrari drivers in the top three in free practice 1 in Singapore, ahead of free practice 2 that was to come later on in the day. As for free practice 2, McLaren's Lando Norris would be the quickest driver by less than six hundredths of a second. FP1 top driver Charles Leclerc was second quickest and the only one that was within a tenth of Norris, as Carlos Sainz would finish third. The same drivers in the top three for both sessions make it seem that they are the drivers to beat heading into the rest of the weekend with their pace being leap and bounds clear of the others but all can very much still change. There were steady rumours coming into the weekend that Daniel Ricciardo could be having his last weekend in Formula 1 with many sources reporting that RB are considering putting Liam Lawson in that car for the remainder of the season. Lawson scored his only Formula 1 points to date at Singapore in 2023, deputising for Ricciardo who was recovering from a broken wrist.
2024 FIA Formula One World Championship: Free Practice 1 results Free Practice 1 would get underway with the first session of the weekend. Teams would be looking to try and complete some practice runs to help and give them good data for the best possible race strategy on Sunday, which could aid their race result. Oscar Piastri would be going nowhere in the early stages as in the practice pit stops before the session, the wheel and tyre would struggle to be removed and therefore this would cause a delay to getting his car on the track for the session. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix winner would be sat in the pits for the first 15 minutes when eventually he would be able to get out on track. Most of the drivers would get out there early on with Pierre Gasky needing two attempts to turn out of the garage fully and head down the pit lane, which would halt Max Verstappen in his tracks, who would be wanting and needing a good weekend at a circuit that he has not had the best of luck at in the past. In the first 10 minutes, Piastri would be the only one to not adventure out onto the circuit with a mixture of medium and hard tyres being the choice of drivers at a very overcast Marina Bay street circuit, however, there was a low chance that rain would come during the session. After the first 10 minutes, Lando Norris would not be having troubles like his teammate and would sit top of the time sheets with the fastest lap time as drivers began setting lap times early on. A 1:33.903 was the time from Norris, which was half a second faster than Verstappen, who was second. Norris would be ahead of his championship rival Verstappen with the pair both running the medium tyres in the early stages. Carlos Sainz would be third but on the hard tyres. With a quarter of the session completed, Norris' teammate Oscar Piastri would finally gethis McLaren onto the circuit after all the issues had been sorted. He would join the circuit on the C3 hard compound of tyres. On his first lap it would not come to much as he would have to slow to yellow flags due to Perez locking up and going down the run off at turn 16. Soon enough soft tyres would be used by the majority of the drivers as they were trying to get a feel of how the tyre would fair around the Marina Bay street circuit as last year some drivers used the soft tyre during the Grand Prix and made it work well. Norris would be one of the first to bolt onto the C5 soft tyre compounds along with Hamilton and Verstappen. The McLaren of Norris would be the fastest out of them as he would set a 1:32.165. Verstappen and Hamilton were unable to match that effort of Norris as the Red Bull was over two tenths back with the Mercedes being half a second behind. This would be a trendsetter with many different drivers and teams setting the lap times on soft tyres. Norris would find some pace as the track was continuing to evolve. This was before the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc would beat him and would set the new fastest lap of 1:31.763. Leclerc would have top spot with 15 minutes to go and a lot of time still remaining. Sainz would sit third behind Norris but ahead of Verstappen. There would be a bit of impeding going on that would be frustrating some of the drivers on circuit, who were trying to set lap times as traffic was causing drivers annoyance. First, Perez was not pleased with Alex Albon at turn 7 and then Yuki Tsunoda found frustration being stuck behind Stroll on the approach to turn 8. Soft tyre runs would be completed and there would be no time improvements although laps would still be completed on the slower medium and hard tyres and therefore the order would not change, meaning Charles Leclerc would end the session fastest. Leclerc would end the session top ahead of Lando Norris by less than a tenth with Carlos Sainz, Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda completing the top five.
After Formula 1 took a break following on from free practice 1 by the time they would return by free practice 2, the sun had set and the night skies would be upon the Marina Bay street circuit. It would be an important session for all involved as this would be the only session under the night skies before qualifying due to free practice 3 taking place during Saturday daytime. Charles Leclerc had been quickest in the opening session earlier on through the Friday running. Therefore, with it being an important session, all drivers would head out immediately in order to not lose any necessary track time, if they could help it with the potential for red flags with this being a street circuit. Charles Leclerc would set the early pace on the medium tyres ahead of Lando Norris on the hard compound Like FP1, it would be the medium and hard tyres for the early stages of the session as the track would begin to ramp up. Leclerc would be beaten by the Visa RB of Daniel Ricciardo, the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and the McLaren of Lando Norris and would drop to fourth mainly due to track evolution as the times were constantly changing. Alex Albon would go up to the top of the times by over three tenths with 15 minutes gone in the session ahead of George Russell by over a tenth. Albon would not stay there for long as a stunning lap from Leclerc would see him jump back to the top of the times after his teammate Sainz made a mistake on his run. The Ferrari car looked to have strong pace in the early stages of practice as Red Bull were struggling to find the pace as was the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, who was complaining of traction issues. Soon enough, soft tyres would be called upon for many of the drivers out on circuit, practicing qualifying runs in the night conditions with the track and air temperature being the way it is. Lando Norris' McLaren would fly up to the top of the time sheets with a brilliant lap time of 1:30.727 that would fail to be beaten by Charles Leclerc on two attempts, who was the only one who seemed to be able to get close to him. Carlos Sainz would sit third but six tenths of Norris' time. All drivers would eventually set a time on the soft tyres and would then pit for a variety of medium and hard tyres in order to do some long runs to help race strategy data for Sunday's Grand Prix once again. It had been a fairly quiet session without any disruption or any real damage to any cars. However, two minutes remaining in the session, George Russell would lock up at turn 8 and would end up meeting the wall breaking his front wing and the end of his nose cone, bringing out the double-waved yellow flags. The session would stay without a red flag, as Russell was able to get the car reversed and continue round the circuit on his way back to the pit lane but this would subsequently end any lap times that were being attempted in the last couple of moments. Therefore, it would be Lando Norris who had the fastest lap of the session and would end the end of Friday top of free practice 2. His lap of 1:30.727 was good enough to stay at the top, despite a challenge from Charles Leclerc in second, who was 0.058s behind Norris' lap. Carlos Sainz would finish third for the second session out of two across the weekend. Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel RIcciardo made it a very good day for Visa RB, as the pair were fourth and sixth as they were split by Oscar Piastri, who was in fifth and over seven tenths behind his teammate. George Russell, Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10 as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton had a difficult time under the night sky of Singapore. Formula 1 would return to action on Saturday for free practice 3 on qualifying Saturday for round 18 of the Formula One World Championship in 2024. 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship: Round 18 - Singapore Grand Prix free practice 2 result
 Brandon Whiteside
Writer - F1 Journal
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