Marina Bay Street Circuit
3-5 October includes the race kicking off at 13:00 BST on Sunday.
Live coverage streamed on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra and mobile app.
Opening Round Highlights
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fastest ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Dutch ace during first practice at the Marina Bay race.
The British team's title rivals Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris concluded the run in P5 and P6.
The young Australian was 0.217 seconds faster than Norris.
The experienced Spaniard was a tenth and a half in front of Leclerc and over a quarter of a second faster than Verstappen.
The Italian squad's seven-time champion was P4.
Weekend Outlook
Few anticipate that Aston Martin will be front-runners for pole position.
However, the team are optimistic of a improved performance on a low-speed track that is better matched to their car, which performs better when high levels of downforce are called for.
Two-time champion Alonso is also famous as a street circuit master, and typically performs well on the night race venue.
Yet he was likely operating with reduced weight or a more aggressive setting than his competitors, or a combination, to set such a quick time.
Practice Conditions
His team-mate Canadian racer was 1.918secs slower in 18th place.
He had issues with his driving position early in the session and was also testing experimental parts.
The first session in Marina Bay is not representative of later performance under lights as it is run in afternoon sun in early evening, while qualifying and the race are staged after dark.
Championship Standings
The McLaren driver is ahead of Norris by a quarter-century with the final stretch left entering the weekend in Singapore.
The Woking-based team are in position to secure the manufacturers' crown on the weekend.
Sole scenario they can not tie it up in this race is if Mercedes outscore them by 31 points or the Scuderia achieve that by a similar margin.
Red Bull Update
Red Bull are optimistic of a strong result after Max's wins in Monza and Baku ahead of this event.
They were relieved when light rain coming down before the session abated by the point the vehicles emerged on a track that had not been wet.
Motorsport adviser the Austrian stated ahead of practice that they needed a dry hour to begin properly on fine-tuning their set-up for the event.
