Leclerc fastest but crashes in Saudi Arabian GP practice

Charles Leclerc maintained his and Ferrari’s stranglehold on top spot in second practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but ended the session in the garage after clobbering the wall at Turn 4.

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Key moments

– Session start delayed by 15 minutes as drivers updated on nearby missile strike
– Leclerc jumps Verstappen on soft tyres again…
– …but sits out final part of session after glancing a wall
– Sainz stops early too after his own wall hit
– More trouble for Magnussen, whose Haas shuts down

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Against the backdrop of a missile strike near the circuit on Friday afternoon, the start of FP2 was delayed by 15 minutes so teams and drivers could attend a meeting of senior Formula 1 officials including FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali.

They were told that the race weekend will proceed as planned, though a further meeting was scheduled for 10pm local time – 45 minutes after the end of FP2.

When the session did get going, Leclerc went fastest of the early runners with a 1m30.216s that immediately eclipsed his FP1 benchmark.

Top spot was briefly pinched from him by the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who went just two thousandths of a second faster on the medium-compound tyre, but Leclerc returned to first place before the halfway point of the 60-minute session with his session-leading effort of 1m30.074s on the soft tyres.

Though he remained on top until the end of the session, Leclerc did not finish it on track after glancing the wall through the left-hand Turn 4 kink.

Oh dear!! 😮

Leclerc hits the wall with his left wheel & has been forced to box 😬 pic.twitter.com/ZWTfznd2xF

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) March 25, 2022

He reported on the radio soon after that “my car is broken” and returned gingerly to the pits, but did not return to the circuit. Close-up shots of the Ferrari appeared to show damage to its steering arm.

The Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying pattern of Ferrari-Red Bull-Ferrari-Red Bull was repeated in the final FP2 standings – with Carlos Sainz third in the second Ferrari, behind Verstappen but ahead of Sergio Perez.

Sainz too ended the session early however, after glancing a wall further round the lap at a similar time to Leclerc.

Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were fifth and sixth, both within six tenths of Leclerc’s best time, while Lando Norris gave McLaren some encouragement by setting the seventh-fastest time.

The top 10 was completed by drivers from three different teams: Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri).

Tsunoda however stopped right at the end of the session after reporting “trouble, trouble” over the team radio.

There was one other incident of note, when Kevin Magnussen stopped his Haas out on track – prompting a short virtual safety car period.

Magnussen, already short on track time after a hydraulic issue limited him to two laps in first practice, said to Haas that he felt an engine problem but was told he was OK to continue.

He stopped on the next lap, however, neutralising the session until his car could be recovered behind a trackside barrier.

Practice 2 Results