Race Information
- Track: Marina Bay Street Circuit
- Location: Singapore
- Race laps: 62
- Lap length: 4.927 km
- Race distance: 306.28 km
- Lap Record: 1:34.486, Daniel Ricciardo (RB), 2024
Last Time in Singapore
- Pole Position: 1:29.525, Lando Norris (McLaren)
- Race Winner: Lando Norris (McLaren)
- Fastest Lap: 1:34.486, Daniel Ricciardo (RB)
A Surreal FP1 Order
FP1 at Marina Bay delivered one of those delightfully strange timing sheets that only Singapore can produce. Fernando Alonso led the session with a 1:31.116, ahead of Charles Leclerc by 0.150s and Max Verstappen by 0.276s. Hamilton, Piastri, Norris, Hadjar, Sainz, Tsunoda, and Ocon rounded out the top ten.
Alonso topping the board felt like we’d slipped into a parallel timeline, equal parts cinema and comedy. It was easy to imagine this trio of Alonso, Leclerc, and Verstappen as a Le Mans-style endurance squad: Alonso taking the dusk shift, Max patrolling the night, and Charles heralding the dawn. It was poetry dressed up as practice.
Of course, reality soon crept in. FP1 at Singapore is run in daytime, on a green track, with cars heavy on fuel and mostly on hard tires. It rarely translates to qualifying pace. If anything, Alonso’s P1 probably says more about Aston’s one-lap setup work than it does about the race order. But it doesn’t make the sight of Alonso leading in 2025 any less intoxicating.
Ferrari’s Familiar Mirage
Leclerc’s P2 time sparked the usual Ferrari cycle: flashes of promise in practice, only for the expectation to be tempered by experience. Once again, Ferrari looked like they’d pulled out a glory run in FP1, just enough to hint at potential, but unlikely to hold up once qualifying begins.
The team’s struggles have become so familiar they’ve practically written their own script. Ferrari continues to be constantly told by fans to stop inventing, urged to wake up, and still seemingly asleep at the wheel. The situation has reached parody, with even Oscar Piastri quipping over the radio that “Ferrari will invent mirrors one day.” It’s become a running gag: mirrors as coward windows, mirrors as unnecessary weight, mirrors as something only for those who expect to be passed. In true Ferrari fashion, even when they look strong, they end up as the punchline.
Williams on Fire, Literally
The other defining moment of FP1 came courtesy of Alex Albon, whose Williams caught fire after the rear brakes overheated. He radioed in with: “I am on fire.”
What followed was a bizarre scene: Williams wheeling a fully smoking car into the garage with Albon still strapped in. It looked more like a hotbox experiment than a safety protocol. It was clumsy, and it raised echoes of Sainz’s brake fire in Austria earlier this year. The incident spawned its own absurd spin, was it bad luck from refusing the ceremonial “duck”? Did Albon forget to disengage the parking brake? Should McLaren share their “tire water” secrets for cooling overheated components? In the end, the whole episode summed up Williams’ weekend so far: fire management, but not in the sense they’d hoped for.
Red Bull’s Friday Reset
Beneath the chaos, Red Bull’s run through the slow-speed sections offered something more serious: genuine stability. Verstappen’s RB looked calmer than it has all year, a direct result of the team’s revised Friday philosophy.
Gone are the sandbagging days under Christian Horner, where the team would under-run engine modes and over-trust simulations. Under Laurent Mekies, Red Bull has shifted toward a balance of higher power modes, less sim dependency, and more trust in driver input. It’s given them a stronger baseline from the start of the weekend, and Singapore FP1 was more evidence that the RB is no longer the twitchy, unsettled package it was early in the season.
The Eternal Dream of 33
Whenever Alonso tops a session, one narrative inevitably resurfaces: the hunt for his elusive 33rd win. And Singapore, with its chaos and safety cars, always feels like the place where miracles could happen. The yearning for “33 incoming” has practically become a ritual, even if it’s tempered by years of heartbreak.
The number itself carries double weight, Alonso’s hoped-for 33rd victory, and Verstappen’s old car number 33, which he’d be forced to revert to if he loses the title and can no longer run with #1. It’s a classic Monkey’s Paw situation: you get 33, but not in the way you wanted.
Singapore Atmosphere
Outside the garages, Singapore remains a uniquely atmospheric race. The Ferris wheel is open to ticket holders all weekend, offering free rides and an unparalleled view of the cars screaming below against the Marina Bay skyline.
Takeaway
FP1 at Marina Bay was peak Singapore: Alonso turning lap times into cinema, Ferrari reinventing themselves as a comedy troupe, Williams quite literally smoking out, and Red Bull quietly sharpening their sword. Beneath the memes and timelines, the session revealed the same truths: Ferrari are a mirage, Red Bull are steadying, Williams are still accident-prone, and Alonso’s 33rd win is forever just out of reach, but never out of hope.