By Alex Harrington

Copyright newsweek

Oscar Piastri was frustrated with Lewis Hamilton’s track position during the first practice at the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, making a pointed comment as he prepared to start a flying lap with the Ferrari ahead of him.

“Ferrari will invent mirrors one day, I hope,” the McLaren driver said over team radio in an unimpressed tone.

The comment came in a stop-start middle phase of FP1 as teams cycled through set-up changes and soft-tyre push laps. McLaren had earlier tweaked the front wing angles on both cars after initial runs, with Piastri reporting understeer before improving. Shortly afterwards, the team’s pace quickened, placing Piastri and team-mate Lando Norris inside the top six.

Max Verstappen set the early time to beat on hard tyres before Hamilton briefly went quickest as the track started to evolve and rubber started getting put down by the cars. Norris then moved to the top, with Piastri also taking a turn at P1 before Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc advanced on mediums and then softs. Leclerc’s first soft-tyre lap established a clear reference, while Verstappen later closed the gap to a tenth. Hamilton slipped down the sheet on his second attempt after losing time as he slipped on the kerb.

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN – SEPTEMBER 21: Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren and Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari talk in the Paddock prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on September 21, 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

With a little over 10 minutes remaining, Fernando Alonso returned to the top for Aston Martin on softs with a 1:31.116, as teams completed their qualifying simulations in warm, daytime conditions. It must be noted that these will not be representative of the teams’ real qualifying pace.

This comes after Williams suffered a car fire when Alex Albon’s machine was affected by a rear-brake issue. The team later confirmed it was a hardware problem and ruled Albon out for the remainder of FP1. He will return for FP2.

“Williams say it was a hardware problem on the rear brakes,” Sky Sports’ ted Kravitz said during the broadcast. “They had this with Carlos Sainz in Austria which meant he could not start the race.

“They don’t think it was a brake-by-wire failure which didn’t allow the rear axle to be slowed down by the ERS system and that led the rears to overheat.

“And Williams have also confirmed Albon is out for FP1 but they are confident they can fix the problem and get him out for FP2.

“Not a lot lost in terms of relevant track conditions but a lot lost in terms of getting your eye in on the circuit.”