Ferrari fined after Leclerc pits-lane clash with Norris in scruffy Singapore FP2
Charles Leclerc called it “a bit of confusion.” The stewards called it unsafe. Either way, Ferrari walked out of Friday with a €10,000 fine and a bruised front wing or two after Leclerc and Lando Norris banged wheels in the pit lane during FP2 in Singapore.
It was one of those messy, Marina Bay Fridays where the stopwatch barely told the story. Multiple red flags, frantic out-laps, and two McLarens feeding into the fast lane at the same moment a Ferrari was let go — then a thud. Leclerc was released almost in lockstep with Norris, the pair touched as the McLaren was squeezed toward the wall, and Norris’ front wing took the worst of it.
The stewards didn’t love the look of it. Ferrari were hit with an unsafe release penalty and a €10,000 fine, with the decision noting a “more severe” response than usual was warranted after the personnel on the Ferrari side “misjudged the situation” as Norris and Oscar Piastri filtered into the lane. No sporting penalties followed, but the message was clear: eyes up in the box, even on a frantic Friday.
Leclerc’s view? Blind spot, bad timing, and not much more to be done from the cockpit.
“I’ve analysed, and obviously, my camera was on my face, so I couldn’t see to double check with Ali, my mechanic,” he said afterwards. “Speaking with him, I think it was a bit of confusion with the two McLarens going out. It looked like they were going out at the same time, so he thought that they will go out a bit slow, and so I didn’t have the message to stop.
“On these kinds of cases, you rely on the team… it was also in a tricky moment, because with all the red flags, everybody was in a rush to get out to do some laps. It’s a combination of things. It’s not something you want, but these things happen.”
Norris, for his part, had a front wing to swap and a rhythm to recover on a circuit where both are expensive. McLaren were otherwise industrious on Friday, threading both cars through the constant stoppages as teams tried to compress long-run work into a session that kept refusing to settle.
For Ferrari, the collision capped a split day. “Good FP1, very difficult FP2,” Leclerc summed up. “It’s been just a very messy FP2, with the traffic and with the red flags and with the pit lane incident, so lots of things going on which haven’t been very positive, but we’ll reset and come back stronger. I think the pace is in the car, so that’s a good thing.”
There’s an art to Singapore Fridays that never changes, no matter the era: don’t get flustered by the noise, build your window, and keep the car intact. The Marina Bay pit lane is narrow, the exits are blind, and the moment the lights go green after a red flag, the choreography can look more like rush-hour traffic than elite sport. Teams know it, drivers know it — and stewards are always watching.
The silver lining for Ferrari? A financial slap is a cleaner outcome than a grid penalty or time docked in-session, and Leclerc insisted the underlying speed is there for the weekend. If FP1 was a hint and FP2 a hiccup, the qualifying simulations tomorrow will tell us which one’s the truth.
As for McLaren, Norris and Piastri have been sharp enough this season that any lost track time is annoying rather than terminal. If the orange cars roll out of the garage on Saturday with no further drama, Friday’s scuff will be a footnote. If not, don’t be surprised if we hear more about “misjudged situations” when the lights go green again.
Everyone will be hoping the only contact on Saturday happens with the apexes. But it’s Singapore, at night, with a tight pit lane and very little patience. Do the math.
