Verstappen pips Leclerc while Hamilton struggles in practice

Reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen topped the second practice session ahead of the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Verstappen was fifth in the daylight opening practice session which was topped by Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri.

But Gasly’s FP1 benchmark was comfortably beaten within the first 10 minutes of the floodlit FP2 with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari ascending to the top of the timesheets.

Leclerc was later displaced when Verstappen undertook his qualifying simulation for Red Bull and posted a 1m31.946s on the soft tyres.

Leclerc improved later in the session to close within 0.087s of the Red Bull driver.

The Ferrari was baulked by Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 8 in the closing moments of the session and the incident will be investigated after the session.

It wasn’t Tsunoda’s only run-in at Turn 8 as the Japanese driver made minor contact with the rear of the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll, who labelled him a “stupid idiot” on his team radio.

Leclerc’s team-mate Carlos Sainz made “too many mistakes” on his first flying laps and undertook a second run that resulted in the third fastest time, albeit 0.584s slower than Verstappen.

George Russell was the lead Mercedes driver in fourth place, over six tenths ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who endured a frustrating session.

Hamilton made back-to-back errors into Turn 1 on his first two soft tyre runs and abandoned both of those laps before he finally posted a representative time on those same soft tyres. He also had no DRS and that along with the worn soft tyres left him ninth on the timesheet behind the Haas of Mick Schumacher.

The Mercedes drivers – Hamilton in particular – were visibly struggling to tame the W13 and deal with the effects of its porpoising problem.

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was fifth fastest ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas who completed just two laps in FP1 but logged 30 laps in the evening session.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was over a second adrift of his team-mate in seventh place, ahead of Schumacher and Hamilton.

The top 10 was rounded out by returning Haas driver Kevin Magnussen.

Lando Norris was the fastest McLaren in 11th place ahead of the second Alpine of Esteban Ocon and FP1 pacesetter Pierre Gasly.

His team-mate Tsunoda was 14th ahead of 2022’s sole rookie Zhou Guanyu and Aston Martin duo Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg.

Daniel Ricciardo was 18th, with Williams pair Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon propping up the times.

Practice 2 Results