George Russell quickest in Singapore GP FP1, Leclerc second
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 9, 2026
Russell leads
George Russell set the pace in Free Practice 1 for the Singapore Grand Prix, and he did it with a lap that left little room for anyone else to respond. Russell turned in a 1m32.274s effort to top the session, beating Charles Leclerc by 0.198 seconds and Lando Norris by 0.273. Lewis Hamilton finished fourth after briefly going quickest, Oscar Piastri took fifth, Max Verstappen was sixth and Kimi Antonelli ended the hour seventh. The session came in 53C track temperatures and carried extra weight because it was the only practice before Sprint Qualifying later Friday. That left teams with one short window to gather data, check balance and build a plan for the rest of the weekend. Russell’s lap delivered the day’s clearest benchmark, and the front of the order stayed tight enough to leave the top three separated by less than three-tenths of a second.
Tire strategy
The session developed in two clear phases, first on hard tires and then on softs when the pace picked up late. Most cars started on the harder compound before switching to soft tires, and that late change gave the field its best chance to attack the clock. Russell found the sharpest lap in the final five minutes, when the track and the tire choice lined up for a quick run. Hamilton also had a turn at the top before Russell reclaimed first place, a sequence that showed how quickly the order could move once the push laps began. Russell had said earlier that his car felt very stiff, and that comment fit the tone of a session in which setup work and tire timing mattered as much as raw speed. The result was a front-running timesheet that shifted late, then settled with Russell ahead of Leclerc and Norris at the front.
Verstappen pace
Verstappen offered a different reference point in the middle of the field. He finished sixth overall, but he was the quickest driver on medium tires with a 1m33.006s lap. That time was about half a second faster than Antonelli’s effort on the same compound, which gave the medium-tyre runners a clear marker even as the rest of the field chased speed on softs. The split also highlighted how different run plans shaped the session, with some drivers leaning on one tire to gather data and others chasing a headline lap in the closing minutes. Nico Hülkenberg created an interruption of the session when a gearbox problem forced a brief Virtual Safety Car. The stoppage stayed short, but it still broke up the flow and trimmed the amount of clean running available to the field. In a practice hour already limited by the weekend format, that made every lap count a little more.
