F1 Singapore GP Live Commentary and Updates – FP2
Friday's second practice from the 18th round of the 2024 Formula 1 season
F1 completes its latest double-header with a now traditional trip to Singapore, as the season heads towards its crunch phase.
Oscar Piastri’s Azerbaijan GP win led the McLaren charge to the top of the F1 world constructors’ standings over Red Bull, while team-mate Lando Norris was able to chip into Max Verstappen’s advantage in the drivers’ championship. McLaren leads Red Bull by 20 points, while Verstappen’s heads Norris by 59 points.
Red Bull heads to relatively weak ground this weekend, as Singapore was host to the only non-Red Bull victory of the 2023 season, when Carlos Sainz clinched the win for Ferrari.
By: James Newbold
With plenty of reaction and analysis to come from Marina Bay, we'll be bringing our live blog to a close there. Thank you as always for joining us. We'll be back to bring you FP3 tomorrow at 10:30, before qualifying action commences at 14:00. See you then!
It will probably surprise nobody to see that the only team yet to score points in 2024 brings up the rear, but only just ahead of the two Saubers are the Alpine twins, with Ocon 17th ahead of Gasly. Work to do then at Enstone this afternoon as teams seek to iron out their deficiencies before returning to the track tomorrow.
In case you missed any of the action from the session, you can find the FP2 session report here.
Verstappen predicted that Red Bull would need a small miracle to fight for victory in Singapore, and his concerns appear to be borne out here as he ends Friday in a lowly 15th spot, while Perez took eighth, bumping Albon back a spot.
But Mercedes will be rather less chuffed with how today has gone, although Russell ended up seventh. His late prang will give the mechanics extra work in this uncomfortable heat, while Hamilton was unhappy with the balance and it showed in the laptimes as he struggled to 11th.
This has been the most encouraging Friday for RB that the Faenza team has had for a while. Tsunoda ends up fourth, just behind Sainz, while Ricciardo in sixth is just one hundredth down on his team-mate with Piastri between them.
Drivers are lining up on the grid for practice starts before returning to the pits for a bit of rest as we inch past 10:00 local time. Perhaps a bit of debriefing and maybe an episode of Nightsleeper before hitting the hay?
That brings down the curtain on Friday's track action, with honours even between Ferrari and McLaren taking one session each. Little choose between the two old stagers that were duking it out for most of this writer's childhood and are now back at the front in 2024.
Russell does make it back to the pits, but efforts to quickly change the nose look set to be thwarted after that hefty bash.
The chequered flag is now out.
His slow-moving car is now crawling back to the pits. A front-right lock-up was to blame, but he manages to get the car squarely nose-first into the wall to minimise damage on the front-left corner.
Russell does get the car out of the wall, minus the front wing.
Dramas for George Russell, he is in the wall at Turn 8.
Oh. And now Norris takes to the Turn 7 run-off, again tucked up behind the Sauber. No room for four-wheel drifting there, it's a painful [insert number here]-point turn to get back facing the right way. No Paul Tracy-style burnout and plunging into oncoming traffic antics here.
He won't have meant it, but it looked good on the cameras. Norris indulges in a bit of four-wheel drifting into the first corner as he arrives rapidly behind a slow-moving Sauber and has to take to the run-off area.
Intriguingly, Leclerc has the fastest first and middle sectors, with Norris only quickest through the final sector.
On the basis that nobody is improving, or showing any signs of doing so in the remaining seven minutes, it appears that we'll have a reversal of the FP1 order with Norris narrowly ahead of Leclerc. The gap was 0.076s earlier, and now is 0.058s.
Norris is currently lapping a shade under seven seconds off his best. It does appear to be the case that he's going longer with the softs on a heavier fuel load to gain some valuable data on how they're holding up. Thankfully, Jake Boxall-Legge will be crunching all the data for us for the must-read data dive that will be coming up later today.
Got to say, I don't mind the new McLaren livery for this weekend. The spectacular lighting certainly helps too.
We've barely mentioned Haas today, but Hulkenberg catches the eye by getting a big oversteer moment at Turn 1 and having to use the run-off area. Perez is similarly afflicted.
"There's something with the brakes that is strange still. I keep locking the front right," reports Sainz.
Verstappen is currently 15th and has seemingly recognised he's not going to ascend the leaderboard any further as he is concentrating on long running with the hard tyres.
Norris is once more on the softs, so let's see whether he or anybody else can improve on his benchmark time of 1m30.727s. Of course, this is also a good opportunity for teams to try out running the softs with a bit more fuel in comparative conditions to those they'll face on Sunday to simulate wear they'll encounter in the opening stint.
Replays show that Norris did clang the wall with his right-hand wheels on the exit of Turn 3, but he has resurfaced with apparently little drama.
Perez comes back into the pits. Luckily, our media centre here in Singapore is right above the pit lane and we get a full view of the Red Bull pit stops.
"I hit the wall pretty hard," says Norris. He's in the pits at the moment.
Both Aston Martins set personal bests last time, enough for Alonso to move into 12th and Stroll 14th. Meanwhile, Gasly vows "I'll remember him" as Perez inadvertently gets in his way.
"It's unbelievable mate," replies Hamilton when informed of his lap for P11 on the soft, which is nine tenths back. He's not a happy camper in the cockpit.
Colapinto is the latest driver to graze the wall, this time at Turn 17, plucking a piece of advertising hoarding off with a tap from his right-rear wheel.
We're into the second half of the session now. And after chatter over its rear wing dominated the build-up, McLaren remains where it was in Baku atop the charts. Will that change in the final 25 minutes or so?
"Is that sarcastic?" is the response from Tsunoda when told by his engineer "good job on the delta".
Sainz now pops up into third, but is a whacking six tenths down on his team-mate.