F1: Sainz completes Ferrari practice sweep in Singapore

Carlos Sainz Jnr put Ferrari quickest for the third successive practice session in Singapore, just ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes.

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Four cars featured in the top four positions at the end of the final practice session, with George Russell second in the Mercedes, Lando Norris third for McLaren and Max Verstappen only fourth in his Red Bull.

The final hour of practice started with the sun low over the circuit with the Singapore city skyline casting shadows over the track. With conditions warmer that they would likely be over the remainder of the weekend, many drivers seemed content to stay in the pits as the session began.

The two Alfa Romeo drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, were eager to run their first push laps and headed out on soft tyres, with Bottas posting the early benchmark with a 1’35.058. Not long afterwards, some of the established frontrunners took to the track on medium tyres, with Verstappen going quickest with his first lap on a 1’34.402.

Sainz returned to the top spot on the timing sheets, where he ended yesterday’s running, with a 1’33.778 on the medium tyre compound. Verstappen took first position back on his next push lap, going a tenth quicker than the Ferrari driver. On used mediums, Leclerc set a purple first sector but crossed the line three-thousandths of a second slower than the Red Bull driver at the end of the lap.

By now the track was very busy. Mercedes had put their drivers on soft tyres and Russell jumped to the top of the times with a 1’33.440. But his ownership of the fastest time lasted a matter of seconds before Sainz improved on his mediums to go over two tenths quicker with his used mediums.

Liam Lawson suffered a spin at turn two that saw the rookie skid to the outside of the track, but fortunately for AlphaTauri the car stopped before he reached the barriers, allowing him to continue on his way. The two Mercedes then used their soft tyres to claim the top two positions with Russell leading Lewis Hamilton by two tenths with a 1’32.883, still seven tenths of a second slower than Sainz’s best time from yesterday.

With 20 minutes remaining, Mercedes fitted fresh sets of soft tyres to attempt qualifying simulation runs. Russell improved his own best time of the session, posting a 1’32.364, before Hamilton went two tenths slower on his next lap. However, Norris was faster than the pair of the Mercedes, putting his McLaren on top by 0.061s.

Red Bull sent Verstappen out on fresh soft tyres to run his own push lap, but he was only able to improve to fourth-fastest, a tenth of a second behind Hamilton. But Sainz found more pace from the softs than the championship leader, posting a new quickest time of the weekend with a 1’32.065 to go two tenths clear at the top of the times.

In the closing minutes of the session, Leclerc set the fastest first sector time, but abandoned his lap after running wide at turn seven. Despite pushing for a final lap before the chequered flag, Leclerc was unable to improve, leaving him fifth fastest.

At the end of the session, Sainz was quickest for the second session in a row, with Russell less than a tenth of a second slower in second. Norris was third in his upgraded McLaren, with Verstappen fourth after complaining of gear shift problems in his Red Bull. Leclerc was fifth ahead of Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and Perez in eighth, with Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda rounding out the top ten.

2023 Singapore Grand Prix third practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	SF-23	1’32.065		23
2	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W14	1’32.134	0.069	20
3	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’32.303	0.238	17
4	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’32.378	0.313	21
5	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	SF-23	1’32.381	0.316	25
6	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W14	1’32.535	0.470	18
7	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’32.730	0.665	18
8	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	RB19	1’32.784	0.719	20
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’32.896	0.831	18
10	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’32.945	0.880	18
11	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’32.970	0.905	16
12	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’32.979	0.914	19
13	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’33.051	0.986	19
14	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’33.126	1.061	23
15	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’33.351	1.286	19
16	40	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	AT04	1’33.357	1.292	19
17	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’33.370	1.305	15
18	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’33.540	1.475	26
19	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’33.637	1.572	24
20	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’33.708	1.643	16

2023 Singapore Grand Prix combined practice times

Position	Number	Driver	Team	FP1 time	FP2 time	FP3 time	Gap	Laps
1	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’33.428	1’32.120	1’32.065		1
2	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’33.695	1’32.355	1’32.134	0.069	3
3	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’33.350	1’32.138	1’32.381	0.073	2
4	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’33.522	1’32.711	1’32.303	0.238	6
5	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’33.476	1’32.852	1’32.378	0.313	8
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’33.974	1’32.478	1’33.051	0.413	4
7	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’33.540	1’32.585	1’32.535	0.470	5
8	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	1’35.474	1’33.461	1’32.730	0.665	15
9	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’33.725	1’32.812	1’32.784	0.719	7
10	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	1’34.985	1’33.139	1’32.896	0.831	11
11	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’34.042	1’33.477	1’32.945	0.880	16
12	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’34.887	1’33.017	1’32.970	0.905	9
13	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’34.066	1’33.361	1’32.979	0.914	13
14	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’34.802	1’33.105	1’33.540	1.040	10
15	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’34.568	1’33.390	1’33.126	1.061	14
16	40	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’34.894	1’33.285	1’33.357	1.220	12
17	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	1’34.639	1’33.824	1’33.351	1.286	18
18	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’34.657	1’35.558	1’33.370	1.305	20
19	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’35.456	1’33.575	1’33.637	1.510	17
20	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	1’35.778	1’34.327	1’33.708	1.643	19

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2023 Singapore Grand Prix

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6 comments on “Sainz completes Ferrari sweep of all three practice sessions in Singapore”

RandomMallard
16th September 2023, 12:03

Still interesting to see RB struggling so much (relative to where they have been for the rest of the season ofc). While a little higher up the timing sheets today (for Max at least), the car didn’t seem like the easiest to drive either, especially compared to the rest of this season.

Singapore was always a bogey track for Mercedes during their dominant era, even if when they did end up winning, that was sometimes down to external factors (2017…). I wonder if RB are experiencing a similar situation there this year…

PlosslF1
16th September 2023, 12:26

Perhaps TD18?…. At this rate Max will have more Asterisks than a French Junior School Library… :)
1. Esploratore (@esploratore1)
  17th September 2023, 4:58
  
  IMO there’s no asterisk on 2021, I’m interested in performance and verstappen was the better performing driver that season; if correcting for bad luck, and yes, I’m counting masi’s mistake as bad luck for hamilton, verstappen should’ve won the title mathematically before abu dhabi even started.
  
  I however don’t value titles won with a dominant car, so 2022 and 2023 have little to no merit, early on in 2022 though he was doing well, was the most deserving driver up to the point where the cars were still evenly matched, with leclerc losing the title already with that spin in france, realistically.