Piastri bounces back as fastest in Singapore practice

Ian Chadband | October 4, 2025

Championship leader Oscar Piastri has roared to the fastest time on the first day of practice under lights at the Singapore Grand Prix, swiftly putting behind him the misery of his worst ever Formula One race in Baku.

Yet while Piastri was hailing a “good day”, his nearest rival and teammate Lando Norris was lamenting a “bad day”, criticising his own driving as he finished only fifth quickest and also lamenting how he was the blameless victim of a pit-lane accident in which his McLaren’s front wing was broken.

Two weeks since crashing out of the Azerbaijan GP in both qualifying and the grand prix itself, thus going pointless for the first time all season, Piastri was after a confidence-restoring day at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Friday and got just what he wanted as he clocked a 1min 30.714sec circuit in the evening session.

In contrast, Norris, who’d closed the gap between them to 25 points in Baku, finished 0.483sec adrift of Piastri, and sounded down on himself once more as he told his race engineer Will Joseph: “The car is not half-a-second off. My driving is.”

Last year’s Singapore winner was still scolding himself later, telling reporters: “Difficult day for me, not feeling too great with the car. Just missing all of the feelings I had here last year. Just a bad day.

“Oscar’s quick – so I’ve got nothing to complain about, bar just not doing a very good job myself.”

The downbeat Norris also had no luck, suffering a collision in the pits with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

His car had just emerged from his garage after a second red-flag stoppage, when Leclerc’s Ferrari was released into his path, with the McLaren going into the concrete wall as Norris was unable to take evasive action.

Ferrari were later fined $US10,000 ($A15,000) by race officials for an “unsafe release”.

When his car re-emerged with a new front wing for the last 10 minutes of the session, Norris couldn’t make any impression on Piastri’s time which topped Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar by 0.132sec and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.143 in the top three.

“Definitely a connected session,” smiled Piastri. “Found my feet on the medium tyre at the end there, and the soft felt good too, so although not too representative of race-running, the car’s been in a good place, I feel I’ve learned a lot through today, which is the aim of practice, so it’s been a good day.”

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who topped the first practice, had another strong session and finished fourth.

Ferrari were ninth and 10th with Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton respectively, while Mercedes had Kimi Antonelli in 18th and George Russell last after he crashed in what he called a “weird” incident. 

There was another red flag when Liam Lawson also crashed into the wall and needed his Racing Bulls car to be recovered.

Verstappen is an increasing danger to Mclaren’s ambitions after back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku, the reigning champion now 69pts behind with seven races remaining.

McLaren will claim the constructors’ title in Singapore on Sunday as long as Piastri and Norris can score 13 points between them.