Alonso surprises with fastest time in Singapore GP FP1

The 44-year-old showed strong pace throughout the 60-minute session, producing a string of quick laps early before ending with the benchmark time of 1m31.116s.

Slightly cooler conditions by Singapore standards greeted the drivers, with Alonso’s best lap coming late on the soft tyres after the track had rubbered in, when most of the field switched to the quickest compound.

Encouragingly for Aston Martin, Alonso’s speed was evident across all tyre compounds, with competitive runs on both the hards and mediums. His performance was also underlined by the gap to teammate Lance Stroll, who finished 18th and nearly two seconds adrift.

Ferrari looked competitive as well, with Charles Leclerc ending second, just 0.150s behind Alonso, and Lewis Hamilton fourth, 0.364s back. The pair were split by Max Verstappen in third, 0.276s off Alonso’s time.

McLaren finished best of the rest after a challenging start. Oscar Piastri, who complained of understeer early in the session and brushed the wall at the final corner, recovered to set the fifth-fastest time — just one thousandth of a second behind Hamilton.

He finished two tenths clear of teammate Lando Norris in sixth, giving the Woking outfit encouragement despite their struggles for outright pace.

Most of the session ran on medium and hard tyres before Stroll and Leclerc switched to the softs around the halfway point. Leclerc briefly topped the order before Alonso reasserted himself at the front.

Light showers fell before the session but had no impact on running, which was otherwise clean aside from Piastri’s scare and a late flashpoint between Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg.

The Williams driver was forced off track after the pair went wheel to wheel through a chicane, leaving Sainz visibly frustrated.

Isack Hadjar impressed with seventh, finishing as the second-quickest Red Bull backed car, ahead of Sainz in eighth.

Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon rounded out the top ten, with George Russell 11th in the lead Mercedes as the Brackley team chose not to run soft tyres. Kimi Antonelli ended 14th, surviving a slide at Turn 1 as he continues his Singapore learning curve.

The only driver not to record a time was Alex Albon, whose Williams caught fire in the pitlane after what the team later confirmed was a brake software issue. The flames were quickly extinguished but Albon’s session ended early. Despite his frustration, Williams expects him to take part in FP2.

With the sun setting and the lights taking over around the Marina Bay circuit, the drivers will return for second practice at 9pm local time (11pm AEST).