#AustralianGP FP2: @CharlesLeclerc tops time-sheets. #F1 #AusGP

Leclerc Australian GP FP2 – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ended FP2 at the Australian GP fastest ahead of championship-rival Max Verstappen who was second for Red Bull and team-mate Carlos Sainz who rounded out the top three.

 

 

Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso placed fourth behind opening practice time-topper Sainz, whilst George Russell was 11th in the leading Mercedes as team-mate Lewis Hamilton ended the day 13th.

 

In conditions 10-degrees cooler than the earlier FP1 session, thanks to the dark cloud looming over the Albert Park Street Circuit ahead of the one-hour long Free Practice 2 running – Sainz lead the way in the early proceedings on the C2 white side-walled harder tyres before his Ferrari team-mate and then Verstappen jumped in-front during their late flying laps on the softs.

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas was the first to post the benchmark of a 1:21.852 with an early stint on the C3 yellow-marked medium rubber, before he was demoted from the top of the order by McLaren duo Lando Norris and then Daniel Ricciardo.

 

At the end of the opening five minutes, Leclerc shot to the top on a 1:20.898 on the mediums, which he beat a few minutes later with a 1:20.523.

 

Bottas then moved back into first place setting a 1:20.432 – before Leclerc, on his early long-stint on the mediums continuing, reclaimed P1 on a 1:20.175.

 

Just after the ten-minute mark, Sainz’s 1:19.979 put the Spaniard into first place, with that tour on the medium tyres remaining as the best until ten minutes later – when the Ferrari pairing lead the swap to the softs.

 

Leclerc got back in-front on his first stint using the C5’s – a 1:19.771 – with no purple sectors and losing a heap of time with a slide at turn 13.

 

Sainz, who had to abandon his flyer on the softs after encountering traffic from AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda travelling slowly on the racing line through turn two, then pipped ahead on a 1:19.568.

 

Alpine’s Alonso pounced to the top of the classification with a 1:19.537 just before the mid-way point, but just a few moments later – Leclerc – who had went through the pits before continuing his stint on the softs – demoted the Spaniard with a 1:19.487.

 

Sainz continued swapping lap-times with Ferrari team-mate Leclerc at the front of the pile as he then hit a 1:19.376, but the latter then jumped ahead with a third hot-lap on another set of the softer rubber with 25 left on the clock.

 

After setting what was the session’s quickest effort in the opening sector, Leclerc flew to a 1:18.978 to get the advantage over Sainz for the first time so far in practice during the weekend.

 

All through the sessions, the Ferrari duo continued switching best times on the softs – particularly during their later stints – Verstappen was following his own programme to build up a better effort on that rubber.

 

Having been further down the classification during the early proceedings on the mediums, the reigning world champion found his way into the battle for the top with his first flyer, which was interrupted by Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon and Hamilton through the very fast left-right of turns nine and ten at the start of sector three.

 

Verstappen’s second run on the softs, where he encountered more traffic at turns nine and ten again, left the Red Bull driver 0.408 adrift of Leclerc’s benchmark, but made steady movement with two more efforts.

 

On his third tour on the C5 red-branded softs, Verstappen set a purple in the middle third, but the Dutchman had to abort it late after sliding on the exit kerbs of turn 12 right hander and bounced back, locking-up and wounding up deep in turn 14.

 

A few minutes later, Verstappen went even quicker in sector two and was able to complete a quicker effort, finishing 0.245 seconds off Leclerc and sneaking ahead of Sainz, with the Red Bull appearing to suffer understeer through the final two corners.

 

The focus then turned to long-race data gathering in the final ten minutes, which was interrupted by a red flag caused by debris coming off the Aston Martin AMR22 entry of Lance Stroll and landing on the turn 12 exit kerbs.

 

When the session went back to green, the Ferrari’s were shown porpoising all the way through the sweeping new run of shallow corners heading into the turns nine and ten sequence.

 

The other Red Bull RB18 entry of Sergio Perez final stint on the softs put the Mexican in-between Alpine duo Alonso and Ocon taking fifth place, with Bottas seventh for Alfa – the Finn’s run on the softs featured a big opening corner lock-up and an excursion through the turn two gravel trap.

 

McLaren duo Norris and Ricciardo were eighth and tenth respectively as AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took ninth in the order.

 

 

The aforementioned seven-time world champion Hamilton was 13th for Mercedes and in-front of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll who was 14th and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu who took 15th.

 

Stroll is currently under investigation for two incidents, impeding Hamilton and Sainz during the initial tours.

 

Haas F1 Team pairing Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher ended the day in 16th and 18th respectively as Williams Racing duo Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi were 17th and 19th.

 

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was unable to run for the majority of the session due to a power-train change as a result of the smoky engine issue in opening practice.

 

The German is also off to the stewards office for his on-track scooter ride back to the pits following the end of FP1.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Heineken Australian Grand Prix 2022 Free Practice 2 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1108/australia/practice-2.html

 

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#AustralianGP FP1: @Carlossainz55 leads @ScuderiaFerrari one-two. #F1 #AusGP

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