Red Bull's Max Verstappen narrowly led Sebastian Vettel in FP1 on Friday as drivers began to make sense of the Singapore surface, with Lewis Hamilton third. There were mixed fortunes for Ferrari and Mercedes, however, as Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas both retired early from FP1.

Verstappen’s time of 1m 40.259s put him ahead of Vettel's Ferrari by just 0.167s, both drivers setting their best laps on soft tyres. Hamilton, who started the session on softs and moved to hard tyres, could only finish 0.666s off Verstappen for Mercedes at the flag.

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Reliability issues struck again for Ferrari as Leclerc’s car appeared to get stuck in fourth gear – just after Vettel set his personal best lap – and had to be wheeled back to the garage with just over 30 minutes remaining.

The Monegasque Monza winner ended the session 19th as he failed to set a flying lap on soft tyres, and it was an unfortunate turn for the team keen to test their new barge board and nose for Singapore.