In the heat of this spring Friday with summer temperatures, FP2 was held, the second free practice session of the Spanish GP. The Montmeló circuit experienced a wonderful atmosphere, one of those of the great events, which reminded us of past times, and the fans who populated the stands and the Pelousse saw how Charles Leclerc repeated and set the best time.
With a great lap and starting after Sainz and the Red Bulls , the Monegasque was faster than he had been in the morning and will go into Saturday having led both free practice sessions. However, this time there was no double for Ferrari, as the Mercedes, last among the big teams to ride soft, managed to finish second and third with George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Completing a sandwich between Ferrari and Mercedes was Carlos Sainz, who nevertheless kept his chances alive of achieving his first pole position in Formula 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Behind the first two teams, Red Bull failed to take the following positions, because Fernando Alonso finished sixth, slipping between Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez who, after missing FP1, was not at the level of his neighbor in the box.
The top 10 was completed by Sebastian Vettel with an Aston Martin declared legal despite the resemblance to Red Bull, Esteban Ocon with the other Alpine and Mick Schumacher. In a negative way, the absence of McLaren in the first positions was surprising, with a car owned by Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo that was very difficult to handle and that in the case of the Briton also presented reliability problems.
Results of Free Practice 2 of the Spanish GP 2022 Formula 1
| Cla | Pilot | laps | Weather | Difference | Interval | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Charles Leclerc |
 |
29 | 1’19.670 | ||
| 2 |  George Russell |
 |
27 | 1’19.787 | 0.117 | 0.117 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton |
 |
26 | 1’19.874 | 0.204 | 0.087 |
| 4 |  Carlos Sainz Jr. |
 |
31 | 1’19,990 | 0.320 | 0.116 |
| 5 |  Max Verstappen |
 |
27 | 1’20.006 | 0.336 | 0.016 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso |
 |
26 | 1’20.203 | 0.533 | 0.197 |
| 7 |  Sergio Perez |
 |
30 | 1’20,632 | 0.962 | 0.429 |
| 8 |  Sebastian Vettel |
 |
31 | 1’20.703 | 1.033 | 0.071 |
| 9 |  Esteban Ocon |
 |
27 | 1’20.745 | 1.075 | 0.042 |
| 10 | Mick Schumacher |
 |
25 | 1’20.757 | 1.087 | 0.012 |
| see results | ||||||
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Foto de: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Photo de: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Foto de: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Photo de: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Summary of the FP2 of the Spanish GP 2022 Formula 1
After leaving his car in the hands of the young Juri Vips in FP1, Checo Pérez wanted to make up for lost time from the start. The favorites started on medium tyres, and with that compound, Verstappen took the lead, beating Sainz by just 46 thousandths and Leclerc by 63. The Mercedes managed to be faster than Pérez in the first attempt, although more than eight and nine tenths behind the favourites.
Lando Norris marked an excursion around the Moreneta corner , but the biggest scare, just two minutes later, was for Valtteri Bottas, who had to stop his Alfa Romeo at the end of the main straight with an engine problem.
During the Virtual Safety Car , after Bottas’ breakdown, an action was repeated in which Carlos Sainz was hampered by Alexander Albon, who was also returning to his car after an FP1 that he had to watch from the garage when the driver was carrying his Williams Nyck de Vries reserve.
There were still 45 minutes to go when the session resumed, and we continue to see the McLaren F1 drivers struggle to get fast times easily. Vettel was the first to mount soft tires after exceeding the first 20 minutes, and the German took the lead. Then Pérez would do it, but the Mexican, with a very improvable lap, did not beat the Aston Martin.
Yes, Verstappen did it with a 1:20.006 that left his partner almost eight tenths. Sainz was the first Ferrari to ride softs and dropped to 1m19.990s, still slower than Leclerc in the morning but 16 thousandths quicker than the Red Bull. Alonso surprised by taking third among the Red Bulls, but slipped to fourth when Leclerc posted a brilliant lap of 1m19.670s that was three tenths quicker than his teammate.
The improvement of the track was evident, and Russell moved into second, 0.117s behind Leclerc, ahead of Sainz, with 29 minutes to go. Shortly after, Albon left one of the most striking images when he went violently across the curb at Turn 9 and the slow-mo replay showed a small flame coming out of that brush.
Hamilton failed to overtake Russell, although he did fall within a tenth of a second to be third. From there we began to see simulations of long runs, although the session ended earlier than expected for Lando Norris, who with some problem in his McLaren had to see how his engineers had to work hard in the box.
The long runs did not allow us to see many more position changes, but they did leave clues to the different tire degradation in the Barcelona heat, a key for Sunday’s race.
And, just before finishing, Checo Pérez, after 20 laps with the same set of softs, suffered an off track at turn 7 without major consequences.
