The China Mail - Aston Martin's Alonso quickest in first practice for Singapore GP

Lewis Hamilton was fourth in the second Ferrari ahead of the McLarens of championship leader Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

The first session in Singapore is often exploratory for the teams as the street circuit rubbers in and lap times tumble.

It is also run in daylight, so unrepresentative for qualifying and the race, which both take place under floodlights.

Nevertheless the 45-year-old Alonso was impressive as he used his soft tyres late in the session to register a best lap of 1 min 31.116 sec, 0.150 sec ahead of Leclerc and 0.276 sec clear of Verstappen.

Two-time world champion Alonso, a winner at the Marina Bay Circuit in 2008 with Renault and in 2010 with Ferrari, used all his experience to coax every ounce of speed from his Aston Martin.

His pace was illustrated by the fact he was a massive 1.918 seconds quicker than Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll in 18th.

McLaren are just 13 points from securing the constructors' championship in Singapore.

But more importantly they need a return to form for drivers' championship leader Piastri, who crashed on the opening lap in Baku last time out.

Norris, second in the championship, won in Singapore last year and a repeat of that result would close the 25-point gap to his McLaren teammate.

Both will need to improve under lights later Friday after failing to get the best from the first practice session.

Piastri complained of oversteer on team radio as they trailed Verstappen, who has won the last two races, in Monza and Baku, to edge into the title picture, 69 points behind the Australian, with seven race weekends to go.

Verstappen has never won around the Marina Bay Circuit but came second last year, albeit 20 seconds adrift of Norris, and is aiming to turn the tables this year as he targets a maiden Singapore win.

Isack Hadjar was seventh fastest in the RB, then came the Williams of Carlos Sainz, Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull and the Haas of Esteban Ocon to round out the top 10.

Mercedes did not use the fastest soft tyres in the session, resulting in George Russell coming 11th on the medium compound, with Kimi Antonelli 14th.

Alex Albon was forced to retire less than 10 minutes into the session when the rear brakes on his Williams overheated and caught fire.

The Thai-British driver, who regards Singapore as his home grand prix, limped back to the pits with smoke billowing from the back of his car as his session came to a premature end.

His engineers face a race against time to rebuild his car in time for the second Friday session, which takes place just two and a half hours after the first.

X.Gu--ThChM