Leclerc was the fastest in both FP1 and FP2, ahead of Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz and reigning Red Bull world champion Max Verstappen in the two-hour sessions.
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Spanish FP1 Grand Prix Results: Leclerc is the fastest from Sainz
What Happened to the Spanish GP Free Practice 1?
After riding hard tires early, Sainz set the soft rail at 1m19.907s. This seemed to be taken down by Verstappen, who put the fastest first two sectors when he encountered a huge amount of traffic towards the end of the tour.
Verstappen still managed with 1m20.164s to go second after Sainz, but then Leclerc beat them both with an effort of 1m19.828s to become a Ferrari 1-2.
Russell was the best of the rest for Mercedes, lagging 0.762s behind the pace of 1m20.590s. He later had a big moment when he came across the second Red Bull, driven for the first time in FP1 by F2 racer Yuri Vips.
Fernando Alonso ranked as two local heroes in the top five, circling his Alpine for 1m20.768s, just ahead of Hamilton’s second Mercedes – who was about to get off the track when he caught Alonso before the last corner.
Later, both Alonso and Vips received reprimands from FIA stewards.
McLaren and AlphaTauri shared the remaining 10 places, with Lando Norris ahead of Pierre Gasley, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
Robert Kubica also appeared for Alfa Romeo, setting the 13th fastest time, with Nick de Vries making his debut for Williams and just overtaking Nicolas Latifi to 18th.
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Spanish FP2 Grand Prix Results: Leclerc is the fastest of Russell
What happened in Spanish GP Free Practice 2?
The teams released medium tires at the beginning of this session, with Verstappen leading 1 m20.932 s, 0.046 s ahead of Sainz and 0.063 s faster than Leclerc – the latter suffered a rough end to his lap.
Sebastian Vettel was the first to set aside time for soft games in his updated Aston Martin, which is talked about today as a paddock, setting the bar at 1m20.703s. This was soon defeated by Verstappen at 1m20.006s.
Sainz overtook Verstappen’s time with 0.016s to 1m19.990s, before Leclerc convincingly beat both with 1m19.670s.
Russell then reached 0.117s of Leclerc’s fastest time at 1m19.787s, with Hamilton third with two-tenths of the pace.
Alonso was sixth in that session, ahead of Sergio Perez (returning in the second Red Bull), Vettel, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Mick Schumacher (Haas).
Sainz and Alex Albon (Williams) had a quarrel after turn 1, which the stewards will investigate after the session. Both Lando Norris and Albon had big moments and ran around the corner 9.
Valteri Botas was an early victim when something “broke” in his Alfa Romeo, forcing him to stop at turn 1.
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