Norris ‘not doing very good job’ as Piastri fastest

McLaren’s Lando Norris said he had a “bad day” in Friday practice at the Grand Prix of Singapore after setting fifth fastest time following a collision in the pit lane.

The Briton, who leads Norris by 25 points in the championship standings, was 0.483 seconds behind his team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri, who was the pace-setter.

A difficult day for me, according to Norris, who won Singapore last year from pole position. I’m not feeling particularly well with the car; I’m also missing the emotions I had last year. There are plenty of things to work on. Just a bad day, really.

Oscar does a good job, but I have nothing to complain about because he is “so quick.”

Before speaking to the media, Norris reportedly complained about how poorly he handled the car radio.

When asked about running strategy, Norris claimed that his lack of pace was brought on by “my driving.”

In a collision that caused the McLaren’s front wing to break before Norris’ fastest lap, Charles Leclerc hit him in the pit lane.

Norris blasted the incident, saying it “cost the team a little money, which is unfortunate.” Ferrari and Leclerc have been informed to the stewards, and their release is likely to result in fines.

Isack Hadjar from Racing Bulls was second fastest, ahead of Max Verstappen from Red Bull and Fernando Alonso from Aston Martin, in a session that was interrupted by two red flag crashes.

Mercedes’ George Russell and Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson both crashed, which produced two red flags.

Russell slammed into the barriers before Turn 16 and lost control, breaking his front wing. Because the car required a complete system reset, he missed the remainder of the session.

Lawson crashed into the pit lane entry after leaving the same chicane and breaking the wall out of Turn 17.

After crashing in practice and qualifying, jumping the start, and then colliding on the first lap of the race, Piastri appeared and sounded confident as he made his return to the track.

In the first session, he joked that Ferrari would eventually create mirrors. “I’m sure Ferrari will invent mirrors one day.

And he made a tongue-in-cheek comment about the cockpit’s issues caused by the driver cooling vest at the end of the second session.

Red Bull felt happy after a difficult start to their recent run in Singapore.

Verstappen, the previous two-time champion at Monza and Baku, said: “The car was not bad, a little like the last two weekends. There were no significant issues.

We just need to try and optimize that a little bit more, he said. “Tried a few things, some were good.” Overall, quite satisfied, but we will need a little more tempo tomorrow to battle it out front.

A clear indication of form didn’t show up because of the disrupted session, which meant that drivers had no time to complete their race-simulation runs at the end.

Alonso was quick all day driving an Aston Martin on a track where he has always been strong and where his flaws are hidden.

On Saturday, the team would be expected to slack off the field.

Alonso praised the performance, which he described as “a little better than the previous grand prix.” Let’s try to adjust the configuration. Even on the front axle, especially, it’s still not in a happy place. Still a little understeering a little bit. A good start, but there is still work tonight.

We were comfortable on the first lap and were able to locate the limits fairly quickly.

“Let’s see if we can win the Q3 on Sunday.” The best Friday so far, with both sessions in the top four, is probably tomorrow, but we occasionally use a different program or fuel on Friday.

His team-mate Lance Stroll was sixth fastest, 0.3445 seconds off the Spaniard, followed by Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz, Williams, and Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.