Singapore, FP1: Red Bulls lead the way

Daniel Ricciardo headed a Red Bull one-two in opening practice for the Singapore Grand Prix with Australian finishing two tenths ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen.

Ricciardo’s best time of the session came late in the session when he bolted on a set of new hypersoft compound tyres to post a lap of 1:39.711. That was good enough to oust Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel from top spot. Verstappen then dropped the German to third with his time of 1:39.912.

The Dutchman finished 0.201s behind Ricciardo, with Vettel a little over eight hundredths of a second further back. Kimi Räikkönen finished fourth for Ferrari, almost eight tenths of a second off Ricciardo’s pace, though the Finn was disadvantaged by a car problem that cost him a significant amount of track time.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was the best of the rest in fifth place, with the German finishing almost 1.4 seconds off the pace.

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished the session in a relatively lowly sixth place, though neither he nor eight-placed team-mate Valtteri Bottas, ran on the hypersofts during the 90-minute session. Carlos Sainz, in the second Renault, split the Mercedes by taking seventh place.

Behind Bottas, Charles Leclerc, who earlier in the week was announced as a Ferrari driver for 2019 in place of Räikkönen, finished the session in ninth place.

The Monegasque driver’s session ended in disappointment, however. Minutes from the end of the session Leclerc made a small error on entry to Turn 3 and clipped the barrier. The impact broke his front right suspension, though he was able to limp his off track via and escape road.

The top 10 order was completed by Haas’ Romain Grosjean, with the French driver finishing three tenths of a second ahead of Marcus Ericsson in the second Sauber.