Ferrari and McLaren fly in FP2, Red Bull and Mercedes in trouble

As it happened

With the session barrel underway, Liam Lawson passes by Lando Norris on the pit exit, where the McLaren driver was waiting to do a practice start. When the New Zealander went by, Norris started and went on the grass past the Red Bull Racing driver. Richard Wood, Lawson’s engineer, simply told his driver: “Let him [Norris] do what he wants.”

Nico Hulkenberg complained of issues with the fire extinguisher inside the cockpit, prompting a call back to the pits for the Sauber driver.

Max Verstappen caught a bit of tail wind on the exit of turn 1 resulting in a snap of oversteer for the Red Bull Racing champion, while Lewis Hamilton complained of “loads of understeer”.

Norris set the pace with a 1:17.671 ahead of Tsunoda nearly three tenths off of the McLaren’s pace. George Russell took P3 ahead of Fernando Alonso, just half a second short of Norris’ time. Oscar Piastri sat in between both Aston Martin’s with Lance Stroll taking P7. Max Verstappen shot up to P3 momentarily, with Charles Lecler and Piastri going quicker than the Red Bull Racing Dutchman, demoting him down to P5.

Wind complicates the session

Russell and Tsunoda then put in fast laps that saw Norris fall to P3. The Mercedes lead driver did his time with a set of hard tyres.

However, Carlos Sainz put his Williams P1 by nearly three tenths with a 1:17.2, as Norris carried way too much speed going into turn three almost losing control of his MCL39.

Nico Hulkenberg then tried to take advantage of the modifications made tu turns 6 and 7, but went wide onto the gravel having to abort his lap.

Russell closed up to Sainz, setting a time just one thousandth of a second short of the Williams’ driver’s time. Alexander Albon confirmed Williams’ pace slotting in P5 three tenths and a half off his teammate.

Charles Leclerc caught tail wind coming out of turn 3, and into turns 11 and 13 the Monegasque went too deep, with the last error prompting him to abort his push lap.

Earlier on in the session, Leclerc appeared to be impeeded by Red Bull Racing’s Lawson, causing the Monegasque to abort his lap.

The session proved to be quite tricky for Alpine’s Pierrre Gasly as well who went wide into the gravel at turn three, reporting an inability to brake through his radio to the French team.

Lewis Hamilton appeared to finally connect a bit better with his SF-25 clocking in a time fast enough for P3, just a tenth shy of Sainz.

Leclerc was able to put a strong lap together and went half a second clear of former teammate Sainz. At the 40 minute mark it was Leclerc, Hamilton who went a bit quicker but still four tenths off his teammate, but quicker than Sainz, Russell and Norris, the top five after the first 20 minutes of on track activity, which saw all drivers return to the pitlane.

Both Racing Bulls sat in P8 and P9 with Yuki Tsunoda edging out Isack Hadjar. Verstappen and Lawson were P11 and P18 respectively for Red Bull Racing. Andrea Kimi Antonelli way off the pace of teammate Russell, down in P14.

As the 38 minute threshold was broken, the driver of the Mercedes 63 car took to the track with a brand new set of boots on and Lawson followed suit with a set of softs to do a qualifying run, which proved to be a rather unsuccessful attempt leaving the New Zealander in P14, unable to gel with the intricacies of Red Bull Racing’s complex machine which lead to several errors at turns 4, 6 and 7.

Antonelli’s first run on the softs was better but nothing to write home about with the Italian taking P9.

Yuki Tsunoda set the time sheets ablaze going ten one thousandths of a second faster than Ferrari’s Leclerc. With rookie teammate, Hadjar biting the gravel hard on the exit of six. Stroll’s fast run on the softs saw him climb up to P4 ahead of teammate Alonso who only managed P7.

Problems for Red Bull and Mercedes as Racing Bulls surprise friend and foe alike

It was Max Verstappen’s turn to do a push lap but coming out of turn one had massive understeer and coming into turn three had oversteer on the entry and the exit of turn 3 which caused him to abort his push lap attempt.

At the half hour mark both Verstappen and Lawson sat in P15 and P16 respectively as problems compounded for Red Bull Racing.

Hadjar then appeared to have been impeeded by a slow McLaren who according to the French Algerian’s engineer was going to be reported to the stewards.

Norris went quickest ahead of Tsunoda with a 1:16.580, two tenths faster than the Racing Bulls’ Japanese driver. Leclerc, Piastri and Hamilton rounded off the top 5.

Max Verstappen was able to put a lap together which was only good enough for P10, whilst Red Bull’s junior team’s Hadjar demoted Hamilton to P6, clocking in a 1:17.019, quick enough for P5.

Lance Stroll went off at turn 1 while Gasly complained about the McLaren’s not looking in their mirrors in the twisty and narrow section of turns 3, 4 and 5.

Lewis Hamilton went up to P4 while Leclerc took P1 with a 1:16.439, four tenths quicker than his teammate.

Piastri then made the most of his MCL39’s formidable balance to improve from his provisional P5 to take P2 ahead of his teammate Norris, painting the final sector purple in the process.

Alpine rookie Jack Doohan was ahead of his teammate, Gasly by the 20 minute mark by a tenth. As Hulkenberg seemed to find an extra gear and after lulling at the backend of the order shot up to P8 behind Max Verstappen who managed to improve to P7, but still 6 tenths off Leclerc’s P1 time.

Afterwards it was time for the long runs. However for Max Verstappen the situation became so dyer that instead of doing race simulations he chose to stay in the garage and perform a front suspension setup change to try and mitigate the balance issues that prevented him from extracting more potential from his RB21.

While Lawson was running in the highs 1:23’s and low 1:24’s Antonelli was running in the low 1:22’s, like his teammate Russell, and Norris even managing to clock in laps in the high 1:21’s. It’s not looking good for the Austrian team, with their junior team, Racing Bulls, effectively higher up the order than its drivers.

As the session reached its final moments, Oliver Bearman got ready to take the track after his team was done repairing his car following his FP1 crash, but the chequeared flag would drop before the Briton could get his Haas F1 car out the garage.

Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen treated the espectators to a but of racing as the teams performed their race pace simulations with the Monegasque having a look up the inside of the Dutchman into turn 11.