At almost 10 ° C cooler than the first workout at Albert Park on Friday – thanks to the dark rain clouds that formed over Melbourne before the one-hour afternoon run – Sainz took the lead in the early run with the toughest tires before his teammate and then Verstappen preceded them during their subsequent soft flights. Valtteri Bottas established the benchmark for first place at 1 m21.852s with an early run on the middle tires, before being ousted by McLaren pair Lando Norris and then Daniel Ricciardo. As the opening five minutes came to an end, Leclerc shot forward with 1m20.898s in the middle, which he won a few minutes later with 1m20.523s. Then Valtteri Bottas came in first with 1m20.432s before Leclerc, with his long early run on the tire with the yellow walls continuing, was again ahead with 1m20.175s. But as soon as he crossed the 10-minute mark, Sainz’s 1m19.979 brought him to the top for the first time, with this lap in the middle remaining the best until 10 minutes later – when Ferrari drivers led the way. Leclerc returned to his first run on the red-walled tire – a 1m19.771s – albeit without purple areas and lost some of his time with a slip in the penultimate corner. Sainz, who was forced to leave his first soft fly after meeting Yuki Tsunoda going slowly into the front line through the second corner, then pinched forward with a 1m19.568s. Alonso broke the Ferrari dominance at the front with 1m19.537s just before halfway, but just moments later Leclerc – who had gone through the pits before continuing on to the soft – downgraded him to another 1m19. 487s. Sainz continued to exchange the best times with Leclerc as he then posted a 1m19.376s, but the league leader then took a definitive third third lap in another soft set with 25 minutes to go. Following the announcement of the fastest time in the first division, Leclerc roared at 1m18,978 to gain the upper hand in Sainz for the first time in practice for this event. Throughout Ferrari drivers exchanging the best times on the soft – especially on their later journeys – Verstappen did his job to build the best time in this mix. Having succeeded during the early middle run, the world champion climbed into the battle for the top with his first soft fly, which was jeopardized by meeting Esteban Ocon and Hamilton through the extremely fast left / right section of the Turns. 9/10 at the start of the final section. Verstappen’s second soft jump, where he had a major traffic problem at 9/10, left him 0.408 seconds into Leclerc’s best overall time, but made steady progress with two more attempts. In his third booklet softs, Verstappen posted a purple field in the middle of the third lap, but had to retreat slowly after slipping off the curbs to turn right 12 and then bouncing off the track, locking and sliding deep. in the last corner. A few minutes later Verstappen went even faster in midfield and was able to finish the lap this time, finishing 0.245 seconds behind Leclerc and stealing ahead of Sainz, with Red Bull seemingly wasting time underestimating the last two laps. Attention was then drawn to the standard racing data collection at the end of FP2, which was interrupted by a red flag 10 minutes before the front of the top wheel cover in the blowing Lance Stroll car and landed on the exit curbs in the Series 12 . When the session resumed, Ferrari drivers were spotted – and heard – drowning enough all the way through the new series of shallow turns towards the Turns 9/10 complex. Sergio Perez’s last soft run broke him out between Alonso and Ocon, with Bottas finishing seventh – his soft run with a big turn 1 turn and around the gravel behind turn 2. Norris finished eighth ahead of Pierre Gasley and Ricciardo, with Russell 11th for Mercedes – 1,234 seconds slower than Leclerc’s best time. Hamilton was 0.3 seconds behind, with the seven-time world champion having a milestone off the track during the early run. As he shot through turn 12 during a mid-lap, Hamilton had to capture two oversteer shots – the second of which sent him to skate in the gravel trap at the corner. Stroll came in just behind Hamilton and is facing two inquiries after the session because he apparently prevented the Briton and Sainz from having separate incidents in the opening rounds. The other Aston Martin – back in the hands of Sebastian Vettel this weekend after the forced absences of COVID-19 in Bahrain and Jeddah – did not participate in FP2 after the problem with the engine smoke late in FP1. The team had exchanged a new engine, but it was time to take the four-time world champion out for the second session. Vettel will also see the racers now that he has completed FP2 on scooter riding on the track back in the pits after completing FP1 and his car being disqualified.
Australia GP Results – FP2:
Cla # Driver Chassis Engine Gap 1 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari Ferrari 1’18,978 2 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Red Bull 1’19,223 0,245 3 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari Ferrari 1’19.376 Ferrari 1’19.376 0.191 0.145 Ren. Sergio Perez Red Bull Red Bull 1’19.658 0.680 6 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 1’19.842 0.864 7 77 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo Ferrari 1’20.055 1.077 Norris Pill’201001 Mercedes 1.077 Norris’20101. 20.142 1.164 10 3 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren Mercedes 1’20.203 1.225 11 63 George Russell Mercedes Mercedes 1’20.212 1.234 12 22 Yuki Tsunoda 4 AlphaTauri 4 Mercedes 4 AlphaTauri 4 Mercedes 4 Mercedes 5 2 1 10 13 4 Mercedes 4 Red Bull 2 1 10. 1’20.611 1.633 15 24 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo Ferrari 1’21.063 2.085 16 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 1’21.191 2.213 17 23 Alexander Albon Williams Mercedes 1’21.912 2.934 18 47 Mick Schumacher Haas Ferrari 1’21.974 2.996 19 6 Nicholas Latifi Williams Mercedes 1’22.307 3.329 20 5 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin Mercedes
