Is this a turn-up for the books or a mirage through the humid haze?
Ferrari topped both practice sessions at Singapore in one-two formation. Carlos Sainz led the way in the all-important FP2, the only practice session run in representative night-time conditions, by 0.018 seconds ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc.
Then there was a gap. Then came George Russell at almost a quarter of a second off the pace.
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Red Bull Racing? You have to look a fair way down, at seventh and eighth, to find Sergio Pérez ahead of Max Verstappen. The best the team could manage was 0.692 seconds off the pace.
That’s not exactly things going to script.
Red Bull Racing had warned ahead of the weekend that this track wouldn’t be easy for it to conquer. While the RB19 has a wide sweet spot — 14 victories in a row this season certainly points to as much — but at the extreme ends of the spectrum it’s less formidable.
Think about the close-run Monaco and Italian grands prix, the slowest and fastest circuits on the calendar.
Singapore is on the slow end of the spectrum. The lack of long straights, combined with high heat and humidity, puts a premium on cooling. High track evolution on the public roads also makes this an outlier in terms of grip, particularly early in the weekend.
But the team didn’t think things would be quite this bad.
“It was unexpected today,” Verstappen said. “We’re just struggling a lot with the balance of the car.
“We tried quite a few things in FP2; some worked, some didn’t. We never really got the car together, so there are quite a few things to figure out tonight. A few things that we don’t understand; that’s what we have to look into.”
The Dutchman wasn’t optimistic that the work to catch Ferrari could be closed in just one night of work.
“I’ll try to of course improve, but it’s quite a big gap,” he said. “Ferrari is very fast. I think we’re just way worse than we expected.”
So how is it that Ferrari — the Monza specialist at the polar-opposite circuit — has ended up so far.
“I think you always need to arrive at Singapore very open minded,” Sainz said. “We’ve seen in the past very weird performance swings at this track because it’s a very particular track, and so far it looks like it’s suiting our car well.”
But Sainz expects there to be much change on Saturday — especially if Red Bull Racing sorts out its single-lap performance.
“The track is going to ramp up in grip a lot,” he said. “It’s all about who finds the perfect set-up for tomorrow.
“I don’t believe when you look at their long-run pace — already they look like the strongest car.
“I think once they sort out their one la pace they’ll be there fighting for pole. Hopefully we can be in that fight.”
There are reasons to think RBR will be back on pace quickly. For one, it was slow down all the straights, and while it’s not ordinarily always at the top of the speed trap, such a lack of speed suggested a lower engine mode, which will mean there’s free time to be gained on Saturday.
But that’s not enough to say the RB19 is the leading car this weekend. There’s work to be done.
THERE’S STILL HOPE FOR RED BULL RACING
It’s not all bad news for Red Bull Racing, however. The RB19 looked much more competitive once the soft tyres were ditched and the long-run simulations were commenced.
Most teams dedicated most of second practice to the medium tyre, and most drivers got in a reasonable stint thanks to the pleasing absence of monitor lizards entering the circuit.
Long-run average pace, medium tyres
Red Bull Racing: 1:38.219 (5 laps)
Aston Martin: 1:38.241 (8 laps)
Mercedes: 1:38.356 (6 laps)
Ferrari: 1:38.496 (8 laps)
AlphaTauri: 1:38.745 (7 laps)
McLaren: 1:39.606 (5 laps)
Haas: 1:39.862 (7 laps)
Alfa Romeo: 1:39.965 (6 laps)
Williams: 1:40.106 (7 laps)
Long-run average pace, hard tyres
Alpine: 1:39.118 (6 laps)
McLaren: 1:38.164 (5 laps)
Alfa Romeo: 1:39.241 (7 laps)
The RB19 has always been quicker on race pace, so the average lap times above aren’t an enormous surprise.
But whereas at other circuits it might be tempting to gloss over the lack of qualifying pace knowing that Sunday would come to the team, that won’t fly in Singapore.
“Hopefully we can come up with the best possible set-up, because we know qualifying will be very important,” Pérez said. “We’re just too far away.
“Hopefully tomorrow we’re able to close the gap a bit more, but we do expect quite a challenge.”
Singapore might be wider and faster than Monaco, but it’s still an old-school street circuit around which passing is very difficult, as it always is around old-school street circuits.
Finding a better compromise between race pace and qualifying pace will be crucial to Red Bull Racing salvaging this weekend. Biasing the car towards the grand prix won’t be enough.
The defence of its undefeated streak starts on Saturday, not Sunday.
OSCAR PIASTRI’S ADAPTATION TO SINGAPORE
Oscar Piastri’s first day at the Singapore Grand Prix was smooth enough, but the Australian will have hoped for more than 15th in the classification and 1.3 seconds off the pace.
His best lap in FP2 was 0.75 seconds slower than teammate Lando Norris, who ended the day sixth and ahead of the Red Bull Racing drivers.
But there’s a critical asterisk to the gap, and that is that Lando Norris is using McLaren’s most significant upgrade since its game-changing Austrian Grand Prix package, while Piastri is making do with a mostly unchanged car.
With the team expecting the update to bring a notable overall performance improvement, much of the gap is explainable — and it’s positive too, even if not for Piastri this weekend.
“There’s still reference; it’s not a completely different cat of car, so it’s still useful to have Lando as a reference,” Piastri said. “But of course there’s a little bit of a built-in gap.
“I’ll try my best to try and keep learning. That’s what I’ve got to focus on at the moment. Hopefully we can set it up for a decent weekend.”
Despite the aerodynamic handicap, the Australian said he expected to find more gains from gaining experience around the circuit, having run only once at night in Singapore.
“It’s a tricky circuit definitely — tight, twisty bumping,” he said. “it was an interesting first day. I learnt a lot.
“There’s still a lot of learning to do. I think we’ve got a bit of work to do on the car as well, but still a lot to try and learn and get the most out of this track. I’m learning all the time, and hopefully we can find a bit more speed for tomorrow.”
The picture for McLaren overall is positive. While Piastri long run on the medium tyre wasn’t fast enough to trouble the leaders, Norris was rapid on his set of hards, and overall predictions have McLaren fighting with Mercedes to be the third-quickest car in qualifying and then vying for the final podium place in a welcome return to the team’s strong mid-season form.
LAWSON HAS A GOOD CRACK
Though McLaren’s major upgrade stole headlines, AlphaTauri brought a more significant new package to both cars in an attempt to haul itself out of the doldrums.
It’s a difficult track around which to assess such a wide-ranging set of upgrades, but practice data suggests the team has done enough to be in the midfield mix this weekend.
More interesting, however, is that it’s Liam Lawson’s lap times that have AlphaTauri looking like a Q2 contender.
Lawson’s first visit to the city-state has gone very well so far, returning the 12th-quickest time in FP2 some 0.192 seconds faster than Tsunoda — a large margin in the context of their differing experience levels.
Tsunoda put his underperformance down to being unable to find any extra grip from the soft tyre. He improved by just 0.006 seconds switching from mediums to hards, whereas Lawson picked up 0.821 seconds.
“I enjoyed it,” Lawson said of his strong start to the Singapore Grand Prix weekend. “I’m still learning a lot, still getting familiar with it.
“Tomorrow we need to make the most of P3, but so far it’s been okay. We’ve just been gradually building basically. Still a bit more to come.”
The order between the AlphaTauri teammates reverts to expectation on long-run pace, though the gap isn’t enormous. Prediction for race pace place the team in the middle of the pack again, which would represent a step forward from the status quo.
“I think it’s definitely an improvement, but also on this type of circuit it’s hard to notice,” Lawson cautioned. “I think the gains we find won’t be as big as potentially at traditional circuits.
“It’s definitely a bit of an improvement, but obviously with something this new we also need to figure out how to maximise that, and that’s what we’re working on.”
With Lawson’s tenure in the car uncertain, this upgrade could have come at the perfect time for his bid for a full-time seat next season.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LIZARD?
For the second time in its history, a practice session in Singapore was disrupted by wildlife, with a monitor lizard wandering across the circuit between turns 8 and 9.
It was immediately reminiscent of Max Verstappen’s 2016 run-in with a much larger lizard, which he and his engineer nicknamed Godzilla.
This new, smaller monitor was nicknamed Godzilla’s Kid, and it made no fewer than three appearances on the circuit, apparently sneaking beneath the concrete barriers, probably to enjoy the baking-hot circuit.
Yuki Tsunoda said on team radio: “Oh there’s a lizard! Oh my god!”
That part of the track is reportedly where lizards are most likely to be sighted around this track given they live in the nearby trees outside the circuit. They’re also unlikely to disrupt qualifying or the race given they’re inactive at night.
This lizard in particular won’t be reappearing at the very least. A fourth wander onto the track appeared to end badly in contact with Fernando Alonso’s front-right tyre.
Sequels never are as good as their originals.
