Singapore, FP1: Verstappen fastest, Bottas in the wall

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen went quickest in the first practice session for this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, as Mercedes suffered a setback when Valtteri Bottas crashed out in the final half hour.

Verstappen beat Sebastian Vettel to top spot in the session, using soft-compound tyres to edge ahead of the Ferrari driver by just 0.167s. Lewis Hamilton was third quickest in the session, though the Mercedes man ended the session 0.666s behind the pacesetting Dutchman.

Bottas was fourth fastest, a full second behind Verstappen, but any thoughts he might have entertained of making a late assault on the top positions on the timesheet ended when he crashed out with a little over 20 minutes remaining.

Bottas lost control of the rear end of his car and hit the street circuit’s barriers entering Turn 19, doing significant damage to the left-front of his Mercedes.

Behind the Finn, Alex Allbon finished in fifth place in the second Red Bull. The Thai driver finished 1.2 seconds behind team-mate Verstappen and three tenths of a second ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Seventh place in the session went to McLaren’s Carlos Sainz who finished two tenths of a second clear of team-mate Lando Norrios. Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 for Toro Rosso.

Charles Leclerc, meanwhile, hit trouble in the second Ferrari. The Monegasque driver was forced back to the pit lane by gearbox problem late in a lap. He coasted to a halt and was pushed back to the Ferrari garage but he failed to emerge for the rest of the session. He finished in 19th place.