Charles Leclerc led a Ferrari one-two as an intrigued monitor lizard stole the show in Practice 1 at the Singapore Grand Prix.
As drivers took the revised layout at Marina Bay, bypassing the grandstand in the final sector, lap times were significantly faster with the Monegasque’s 1:33.350s some nine seconds faster than the best time last year.
Carlos Sainz closed to within a tenth of his teammate late on to claim P2 in the second Ferrari as Max Verstappen completed the top three for Red Bull.
Lando Norris set the early pace on the medium tyre as he tested a major upgrade package on his ‘stealth’ McLaren complete with plenty of flow vis.
But the Briton slipped to fourth following the soft tyre runs, just ahead of the two Mercedes’ of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
2022 winner Sergio Perez was seventh in the second Red Bull, Fernando Alonso claimed P8 with Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon completing the top 10.
Surprisingly, there were no major incidents during the opening hour as the only yellow flags were caused by the monitor lizard entering the track between Turns 8 and 9.
For Verstappen, it brought back memories of a previous encounter with a “giant lizard” on track back in 2016, with his engineer joking Godzilla had “had a kid”.
A reminder of Max’s first encounter with “Godzilla” ??#SingaporeGP @redbullracing pic.twitter.com/tXnGtfrNR1
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 15, 2023
Down the order, Lance Stroll was 11th ahead of Pierre Gasly in P12, as both Alpine drivers ran with significant upgrades.
Alex Albon was 13th, followed by Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen in 15th.
Liam Lawson was 16th on his first outing at his favourite circuit from the video games in real life.
Nico Hulkenberg, the newly re-signed Zhou Guanyu, Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant rounded out the timesheet.