2025 F1 Singapore Grand Prix - Friday Practice - LIVE UPDATES!

Valtteri Bottas has revealed to Crash.net in an exclusive interview just how close he came to racing for Mercedes at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The 36-year-old Finn was on standby in his role as Mercedes’ reserve driver in Baku when illness left George Russell's participation in doubt.

“I think it was pretty close,” Bottas told Crash.net ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix. “It was only up until one hour before FP1 that he decided that he's going to try. 

|That’s when we have to decide the pedal setups and seats and stuff like that. Until then I was ready. I was well prepped with the engineers for the day.

“I basically woke up to Paul [Ripke], my travel guy, banging on my door when I was still sleeping. He said, 'we’ve got to go get ready'. I was like, ‘all right, let's go’ but it didn't happen.”

Alonso goes for another soft tyre lap and finds the smallest improvement possible - just 0.001s! 

Fernando Alonso, now with soft tyres on his Aston Martin, goes fastest. 

It's a 1m31.117s that sees the 44-year-old Spaniard take top spot, 0.149s clear of Charles Leclerc. 

The track is ramping up in the closing stages of FP1. 

Oscar Piastri has just had a lap ruined by Lewis Hamilton, who rather got in his way at Turn 1. 

"Ferrari will invent mirrors one day, I hope," the Australian cheekily quipped over team radio. 

The F1 points leader did eventually get a clean lap in that puts him third, a couple of tenths off. 

Max Verstappen goes for a second soft tyre run and manages to find improvement that lifts him up to second and just 0.126s behind Charles Leclerc in his upgraded Red Bull. 

Lewis Hamilton does manage to get a lap in on softs as he slots into P4, over half a second down on his teammate and behind Carlos Sainz on mediums. 

Some of these early soft tyre times are odd to say the least. 

Max Verstappen has only gone fourth, over half a second down, while Oscar Piastri is down in sixth and a second off the pace. 

Lewis Hamilton has had a big slide and backed out of his first soft tyre run. 

So far, nobody can get close to Charles Leclerc's benchmark. 

Charles Leclerc is the first of the frontrunners to switch onto softs and he immediately goes fastest on a 1m31.266s.

Lando Norris, also on softs, slots into second for McLaren, nearly half a second down. 

A couple of changes to the times as first Fernando Alonso reclaims P1.

Moments later, Carlos Sainz, also on mediums, goes even faster on a 1m31.812s to usurp his fellow countryman and put his Williams on top by 0.242s. 

1. Lando Norris
2. Max Verstappen +0.021s
3. Isack Hadjar +0.057s
4. Fernando Alonso (mediums) +0.099s
5. Charles Leclerc +0.107s 

Lando Norris, who dominated here last year, jumps to the top of the FP1 timesheet with a 1m32.493s.

That puts him 0.021s clear of Red Bull's Max Verstappen. Both used hard tyres to set their lap times, with Fernando Alonso now slipping to third on mediums. 

Fernando Alonso has just hit the top of the timesheets in his Aston Martin. 

On medium tyres, Alonso is 0.419s quicker than Max Verstappen, who is using hards. 

Alex Albon has suffered a rear brake fire on his Williams. He's safely back in the pitlane with his car being attended to by his crew, but this is a big smoky mess. 

Times will continue to change in these early exchanges but as it stands it is Max Verstappen setting the pace from Lewis Hamilton, for what it's worth. 

For the first time in F1 history, governing body the FIA has issued a heat hazard for a Grand Prix weekend, with conditions expected to exceed 31°C this weekend in Singapore.

The drivers now face a major decision because the cooling vest element of the system is voluntary, rather than mandatory. Those who decide against it will have to carry extra ballast. 

“Any driver may elect not to wear any items of personal equipment that form part of the driver cooling system," the rules state. 

“In such circumstance, all other components, including any cooling medium, of the Driver Cooling System must be fitted.

“In addition, the difference in mass between the driver’s personal equipment normally used and any items of a driver’s personal equipment that form part of the system must be compensated by the fitting of 0.5kg of ballast in the cockpit, such ballast designated for this purpose will be included in sum of masses described in Article 4.7b of the Technical Regulations.”

McLaren will become champions in Singapore if they score 13 points. 

In other words, a single podium from either Piastri or Norris would be enough to see McLaren crowned champions.

Such a feat would still equal the record for the earliest constructors’ championship victory with six rounds to go. This was set by Red Bull in 2023.

THE PERMUTATIONS THAT CROWN MCLAREN CHAMPIONS

• If McLaren avoid being outscored by Mercedes by 31 points or more, they are world champions
• If McLaren avoid being outscored by Ferrari by 35 points or more, they are world champions
   

Oscar Piastri has admitted he “can’t afford” to repeat his disastrous Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend if he wants to win this year’s world championship.

F1 title leader Piastri endured his worst weekend of the season in Baku as he crashed out on a nightmare first lap that also saw him jump the start and fall to the very back of the field.

"We don't want to have weekends like Baku and we know we can't afford to have weekends like Baku,” Piastri told reporters ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.

"Certainly from my side of things there was some tough lessons to take but I think as a team we kind of recognised a few opportunities from the weekend to try and improve. So that's always an important thing.

"Baku was quite a good reminder of firstly how quickly everything can change but also on some of the things that have made the season so successful for myself and the team. So I think just trying to stay focused on that will naturally take care of the championship picture.”

Piastri added: "There's some lessons about how I can deal with that better and just lessons on risk I guess is the best way to put it. There's nothing revolutionary that I think needs to change or that I am going to change. 

"For 16 of the 17 weekends what I've been doing has worked very well. If I make sure I stay focused on the things that have gone well then it will continue to go that way. Nothing revolutionary. I'm just putting it down to some mistakes.”

Dominant back-to-back wins in Italy and Azerbaijan have brought Max Verstappen back into the conversation about the 2025 F1 title race. 

The four-time world champion currently sits 69 points behind leader Oscar Piastri, and is 44 points adrift of second-placed Lando Norris, with seven races and 199 points still to go. 

It is absolutely mathematically possible for Verstappen to still win this year's title and become a five-time world champion, but it would take an unprecedented run of form, and require McLaren to trip over themselves. 

Another win this weekend in Singapore would certainly turn the heat on McLaren. 

Hello and welcome to Crash.net's live coverage of the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix. 

We have two hour-long practice sessions coming up today from the Marina Bay Street Circuit. 

First up is FP1 at 10:30 UK time, with FP2 getting underway at 2pm.