Carlos Sainz Jr leads Second Practice Session at Marina Bay

Scuderia Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz Jr beat his teammate Charles Leclerc to the top of the timesheet, as Lewis Hamilton failed to maintain his pace from the first practice session of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.

After the surprise lap from Lewis Hamilton at the end of the first practice session at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team headed into the second practice session keen to keep Hamilton a the top of the timesheets. By the end of the first stint, the British driver sat in first place, however, this was short-lived as Sainz soon set a time of 1.43.231s beating the previous fastest time by a narrow 0.381s.

Whilst Sainz continued to run at the front with the fastest time and on the medium compound, his teammate had less than a positive start to the session and was delayed getting onto the track by almost half an hour. Charles Leclerc’s F1-75 remained in the after a brake issue was detected early on, causing the Monegasque driver to lose a considerable chunk of track time.

Similarly to Ferrari, there seemed to be a lack of urgency in the Red Bull garage, after 29 minutes of the practice session the two drivers were yet to be seen on the track. Sergio Perez was first to emerge running the soft tyre, yet failed to get the fastest time and sat behind his teammate Max Verstappen in eighth position after having a few close calls with the wall in the third sector.

At the beginning of the session, Max Verstappen’s car encountered difficulty with front suspension, which seemed to persist throughout the session as the current reigning champion seemed to lack in pace until the driver pitted for fresh soft tyres which bumped him up to fourth place, setting a late banker time of 1.42.926s.

Over at the Scuderia AlphaTauri garage, Pierre Gasly, who is rumoured to be in talks with BWT Alpine F1 for next season, was running in the thirteenth position when he pitted and the AlphaTauri mechanics wheeled in his AT03, only for flames to emerge from the airbox. Luckily the car only suffered minor fire damage and the unexpected flames didn’t impact the Frenchman as he was quick to get back in the car and onto the track, only moments after the fire was extinguished.

At the end of a somewhat dramatic free practice session, it was Carlos Sainz who had the pace and set a lap time of 1.42.587s, a narrow margin of 0.208s between him and his teammate Charles Leclerc. Mercedes driver George Russell sat between Leclerc in third, followed by Verstappen and Hamilton.