Valteri Botas took the lead at the start of the second one-hour practice session on Friday, although he immediately retired at the end of his first lap and remained there for the next 20 minutes while Alfa Romeo worked on his car.
This meant that Botas teammate Zhou Guanyu went on to set the benchmark for first place in the 1m20.145s, which was quickly defeated by Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll – the first to be put in the way of Kevin Magnussen when he left Aston Martin’s garage. the beginning of the session.
This forced the Haas driver to lock his wheels as he avoided hitting Vettel in the pit lane in an incident that will now be investigated, FP2 ended.
Esteban Ocon’s first tour of the soft sections led to a best time of 1m16.842s a few moments after the Aston couple passed, just before Verstappen’s initial effort – Red Bull used the media, as did most of the pitch at this stage – put it fastest at 1m15.618s.
Verstappen’s first run lasted 10 laps, with each pilot after a cooling-off lap bringing him additional gains as he improved to 1m15.096s, then 1m14.792s and finally 1m14.532s after the first 15 minutes were over.
The world champion then spent the next phase of the boxing session, during which Leclerc closed in 0.298 seconds in second place with a series of flying laps on a similar long journey, but instead using the soft ones.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75
Photo: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
Just halfway, Verstappen headed for the red-walled C5 rubber for the first time and duly headed for the new fastest time – 1m14.127s.
Right behind the other Red Bull and in the same place, Sergio Perez, who had a pinch lock and then a moment off the track in the early turns during the early stages, made an effort for a qualifying simulation that came a little more than a second slower from the leading times of Verstappen.
The next to try the qualifying simulation was Leclerc and he determined the fastest time in the middle sector to improve the second best time to a 0.081s deviation from Verstappen.
Sainz finished third shortly after with 1m14.352s, while Vettel’s own soft pilot then placed him in fourth place – 0.315s behind the leader – as the pair was noted by the race director for an accident involving driving unnecessarily slow on the exit from the box forward of their respective qualifying simulation runs.
The group then moved on to long-term data collection for the race, with heavy clouds gathering around the track and threatening action at the end of the session, even though it was not raining.
This therefore concluded in the rest of the top 10, as Fernando Alonso finished fifth ahead of AlphaTauri by Pierre Gasley and George Russell, who, along with teammate Lewis Hamilton, missed the start of FP2 while Mercedes worked to adjust the W13 continue. after the beginning of the session.
Russell complained about a “huge jump” through the fast turn 9 to the right, which leads to the short straight down to the hairpin during the early stages, before his best soft time – 1m14.971s – coming during the wave of the most the fastest times exactly halfway.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari F1-75
Photo: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished eighth and ninth, the latter continuing the late session, which included an almost pass with Joe in the approach to the chicane of 3/4 turns – the Alfa driver obviously did not know that McLaren was on a hot lap.
Okon rounded out the top 10 ahead of Perez, Stroll and Hamilton.
The seven-time world champion eventually missed the first 15 minutes due to lengthy adjustments, with his best time being 0.45s slower than Russell’s fastest in the other Mercedes.
Hamilton described driving his car as “already unmanageable” during the final stages.
In the end, Botas raised the back of the field without a set time and only three completed / incoming laps, as both times the Finn set off again after his initial study tour, a gear change problem meant he was forced to return to Alpha garage.
FP2 was interrupted by a brief activation of a virtual safety car during the early stages as the marshal had to run to the runway at the exit of the hairpin to retrieve a box of drinks that was blown down the runway in rough conditions, function throughout session period.
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