Practice report
Formula 1 Spanish GP
Spanish GP: Hamilton tops FP2 from Bottas, Leclerc
Lewis Hamilton topped the second practice session for Formula 1's 2021 Spanish Grand Prix ahead of Valtteri Bottas, with Max Verstappen well down the order after aborting his qualifying simulation.
Alex Kalinauckas
Edited: May 7, 2021, 2:14 PM
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In conditions that were hotter and windier than Friday's earlier FP1 session, the second 60-minute practice running was initially led by Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Italian's 1m20.691s was set on the medium tyres, which all the drivers appeared on for their first runs in the session's opening quarter.
But Giovinazzi's leading time from the first minutes was soon beaten by a flurry of fast times, as Esteban Ocon moved ahead with a 1m20.303s and Bottas's 1m19.087s.
Bottas went fastest again on a 1m18.419s after a couple of slower tours, with Hamilton trailing his teammate by 0.042s and Verstappen 0.366s slower after his fastest lap on the mediums.
The session was interrupted at the 10-minute mark, when the virtual safety car was activated so a piece of bodywork – that had flown off Carlos Sainz's car after he had run heavily over the Turn 9 exit kerbs leading on the back straight – could be cleared by a marshal.
A brief lull in action followed as most of the pack returned to the pits ahead of the qualifying simulation runs on the soft tyres.
The Mercedes drivers led the pack out on the softest compound, with Bottas running ahead of Hamilton.
Both cars were slower than they had been on mediums in the opening sector, but gained time significantly as their laps wore on to both improve.
Bottas's 1m18.309s put him further ahead at the top of the times, but not for long as Hamilton completed his lap with the then fastest time in the final sector to go quickest on a 1m18.170s.
As he continued to lap on the same soft tyres for a run before the long-run data gathering period in the session's second half kicked off, Bottas was informed that Hamilton had been running in a different engine mode, which Mercedes said was had a 0.1s difference – the time between them being 0.139s.
Verstappen's flying lap on the softs came a few minutes after the Mercedes cars, as has become the norm in the shortened FP2 action, and he had to contend with significantly more traffic.
The Dutchman was just over 0.1s slower than Hamilton in the first sector and lost just a fraction more in the second, but then had to catch a wild moment going deep into the reprofiled Turn 10.
Verstappen had to go completely off the track catching his RB16B and quickly backed off in the following turns.
He continued to lap on the softs, but did not go quicker than he had on the mediums, before switching to his race preparation running.
Verstappen's absence from the leading times left a spot that Charles Leclerc slotted his Ferrari into – finishing an encouraging 0.165s slower than Hamilton with the session's fastest time in the third sector.
Ocon led his Alpine teammate Fernando Alonso in fourth and fifth, with Pierre Gasly then finishing ahead of Yuki Tsunoda in the second AlphaTauri.
Sainz was eighth for Ferrari, with Verstappen's medium tyre best time putting him ninth, ahead of teammate Sergio Perez, who did complete his soft tyre flyer but wound up 0.748s slower than Hamilton's best time.
Verstappen finished the session with the right-side footplate of his front wing hanging off, picking up the damage running over the kerbs at the uphill right of Turn 8 in the final few laps after he had completed a pitstop at the end of his race simulation.
Cla Driver Chassis Laps Time Gap 1 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes 32 1'18.170 2 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes 31 1'18.309 0.139 3 Charles Leclerc
Ferrari 28 1'18.335 0.165 4 Esteban Ocon
Alpine 29 1'18.466 0.296 5 Fernando Alonso
Alpine 30 1'18.518 0.348 6 Pierre Gasly
AlphaTauri 32 1'18.593 0.423 7 Yuki Tsunoda
AlphaTauri 30 1'18.619 0.449 8 Carlos Sainz Jr.
Ferrari 30 1'18.674 0.504 9 Max Verstappen
Red Bull 26 1'18.785 0.615 10 Sergio Perez
Red Bull 23 1'18.918 0.748 11 Sebastian Vettel
Aston Martin 30 1'18.947 0.777 12 Lando Norris
McLaren 28 1'19.092 0.922 13 Antonio Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo 29 1'19.122 0.952 14 Lance Stroll
Aston Martin 29 1'19.134 0.964 15 Daniel Ricciardo
McLaren 28 1'19.195 1.025 16 Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo 30 1'19.213 1.043 17 George Russell
Williams 29 1'19.957 1.787 18 Nicholas Latifi
Williams 26 1'20.046 1.876 19 Mick Schumacher
Haas 30 1'20.326 2.156 20 Nikita Mazepin
Haas 27 1'20.753 2.583 View full results
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