Lando Norris’s opening two flying laps led the way at the top of the times for much of the opening phase of the session, where the drivers built up to speed on the dusty course running the two harder compounds – oversteer rife in the slower opening turns early on.
The Ferrari drivers and Lewis Hamilton shuffled Norris back as their lengthy opening runs on the hards headed towards their conclusions, before the McLaren driver – fitted with mediums – surged back ahead with a 1m34.776s.
The pack headed back to the pits en masse just after the 20-minute mark of the one-hour session had been reached, after which Alpine’s Pierre Gasly led the switch to the soft tyres approaching the half-way point.
His first lap did not better Norris’s leading time on the mediums and when the majority of the rest headed out on the red-walled tyre, their preparation was interrupted by a yellow flag activation at Turn 8 lasting over two minutes as a lizard had ventured out onto the circuit.
Once it had moved on, George Russell and Sainz finally toppled Norris’s medium effort with their opening softs flier, before the McLaren driver got back in front with a 1m33.522s after he had also taken the softs.
The big track evolution factor early in the Singapore weekend meant drivers were finding time even after a few laps on the softs, with Charles Leclerc going quickest on a 1m33.350s as the session ticked past its two-thirds distance mark.
Verstappen slotted into second a few moments later, 0.126s slower for Red Bull – the Dutchman, who noted the lizard was much smaller than the one he famously encountered he in practice back in 2016, complaining that his RB19 was oversteering too much early on as he ran far back in the lower reaches of the top 10 and feeling it yet again had “very aggressive downshifts”.
Source: Autosport