Oscar Piastri interrupted his important but second practice at the Singapore Grand Prix after a strange pit lane crash involving two red flags and Charles Leclair and Rand Norris interrupted the session.
The combination of George Russell and Liam Lawson’s crashes reduce the hourly session by 24 minutes, undermining the only representative after-dark session of this nighttime Grand Prix.
At the start of the barrier, Russell took too much speed to turn 16, passing past the top and thrust into the barrier before slamming himself from the damaging tank slapper.
“It was strange,” Russell reported before stepping into the pit lane without a Nosecon.
However, the damage was more severe than it appears, with the team withdrawing him from the session just six laps later.
The session was stopped for almost 12 minutes as the track was cleared and the barrier was reset, but the circuit remained open for only 5 minutes until it was closed again.
The Kiwi was on a fast lap when he lost control of the car through turn 17. This shock quickly stripped his lower right tire from its rim, causing a right dosing. Kiwi attempted to return to the pit lane, but the floor rubbed along the ground, forcing debris on the track to stop at the pit entry, triggering the suspension.
Leclerc then risked causing the third red flag of the session when the driver oddly hit Norris as he left the garage to reopen.
Norris was already in Fast Lane when Leclerc was released directly into his path. They made contact with the front wheels and sent Norris down the wall of the pit, breaking the McLaren front wing.
McLaren and Ferrari mechanics worked to rescue Norris and return it to the garage for repairs, but Leclair was able to continue without any damage. The incident proceeds to the steward after the session.
Lawson’s crash was particularly troublesome at that timing. Qualifying simulation laps are now set in the middle of the hour. Most drivers returned to the circuit with soft tires to complete the running of the qualified simulation, but prevented them from doing meaningful long runs.
Piastri scored a chance to move to the top of the order with a best time of 1m30.714, but it was Isack Hadjar who followed him in second place.
Max Verstappen was one of the first laps to finish the session third in just 0.143 seconds on Red Bull Racing’s competitive show, with Piastri finishing the session third.
Fernando Alonso, who outperformed FP1, was just 0.163 seconds in fourth place for Piastri and just 0.163 seconds in the strictly contested top four.
Norris struggled to connect a competitive lap after the pit lane crashed. For the first time he left him behind in his teammate Piastri. His team suggested switching to continuous running to end the session. Britton insisted he had to search for half a second, but the cooled-down lap and final push lap didn’t give him extra time, leaving him fifth.
Reims was sixth in the walk than Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz.
Leclerc led Ferrari’s teammate Lewis Hamilton, with the pair split in just 0.025 seconds, but was almost 0.8 seconds later than Piastri in the top 10 downstream.
Tsunoda was in the 11th place, with Japan’s rivers 0.994 slower than Piastri and 0.851 seconds behind teammate Verstappen. The low-pressure Japanese drivers handed Oliver Baerman, Alex Albon, Nico Halkenberg and Gabriel Boltreto to 15th place.
Pierre Guthrie was the fastest alpine driver to lap the 16th fastest before the crashing Lawson.
Andrea Kimmi Antoneri was in 18th place. The Mercedes rookie had just tried to start a qualifying lap when Lawson hit a wall, but his team chose to send him back for a run on medium tires after reopening.
Franco Colapinto was 19th in the Alpine ahead of Russell’s crash.
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