George Russell fastest in FP2, as Charles Leclerc crashes out

Leclerc was okay and was seen getting out of the car quickly after the incident, however, it does mean that Ferrari will have a big task in order to get his car ready for the action tomorrow morning.

George Russell finished on top of the timings chart at the end of the 90-minute session, with Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon trailing under a second behind. The three drivers and Alex Albon were able to use this session to run their own programmes due to having a young driver test their cars in FP1.

Red Bull and Ferrari end up behind Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton finished as the best of the Pirelli tyre testers, as he claimed the fourth spot with a lap time of 1:21.509. This was enough to finish 0.070 seconds ahead of Sergio Perez, who had his home crowd roaring in support every time he was on track. Two-time World Champion Max Verstappen was next in the charts but was not far behind his teammate Perez, finishing only 0.009 seconds down.

Despite crashing in the session and causing the lengthy red flag, Leclerc was still able to finish in the top seven and ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz. The Monegasque driver was only 0.030 seconds off Verstappen but managed to finish almost one-tenth ahead of his Spanish teammate in eighth.

Pirelli test switches up the grid completely

Normally, we’d see a mix of midfield teams fighting for times to be the best of the rest in this session, but today it was different. Due to the Pirelli tyre test taking place, it was Valtteri Bottas that finished close to the Ferrari duo of Leclerc and Sainz. However, the Finn was still over two seconds down on Russell.

Pierre Gasly, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel were all within five-tenths of the Alfa Romeo driver, as they claimed the 10th, 11th and 12th spots respectively, ahead of Albon in 13th. The Williams driver was able to use slicks for the session but still struggled to find any pace and may have been experiencing the sliding that those driving in FP1 felt.

The McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo followed Albon in P14 and P15, but it shouldn’t be of much concern, as the two were able to finish eighth and 11th respectively in FP1.

The timings chart was rounded out with Lance Stroll, the Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen, Nicholas Latifi and Zhou Guanyu, who claimed P16 through to P20. The Alfa Romeo driver caused a red flag with a minute left after he had to pull over in the final sector due to a hydraulic issue.