A brief excursion at Turn 1 mattered little to Charles Leclerc. He was already on top of the Formula 1 pile in FP2, prior to his off towards the end of the session, having beaten Max Verstappen by almost four tenths of a second.
F1’s trip down under left many batting away the effects of jet lag, with a few slips prevalent throughout the Friday sessions as the drivers reacquainted themselves with the challenging Albert Park circuit in the city of Melbourne.
After a tentative start, most had got their mistakes out of their system by FP2, although there were nonetheless a few errors along the way in the second hour of Friday running. Logan Sargeant thrust the hearts into the mouths of the Williams pitwall with his Turn 11 spin, where he’d not quite nailed the entry of the corner and caught the gravel on the exit, but he helpfully kept his FW46 out of the wall. Leclerc’s own skip across the Turn 1 grass echoed that of George Russell’s earlier turf-bothering efforts, itself a carbon copy of Lewis Hamilton’s slip in FP1.
After a season opener in Bahrain that features a huge safety net with its vast swathes of run-off, and the challenge of claustrophobic walls lining the high-speed Jeddah circuit, F1 returned to its traditional roots of grass and gravel to test the drivers’ skills. It certainly kept quite a few on their toes…
The story of the day
Leclerc was relentlessly self-improving in his practice efforts during FP2, hardly willing to concede the uppermost position on the timing boards across the Friday afternoon session. He’d first claimed it during the medium-tyre runs, where he’d become the first runner of the weekend to traverse into the 1m17s – his 1m17.936s effort posing a benchmark to those switching to the soft tyres.
The Aston Martin pair picked up the gauntlet that had been cast to the floor by the Monegasque, although their opening efforts were hardly error-free – Lance Stroll having carelessly spilt a potential headliner with a Turn 13 excursion on the grass. But the two were less profligate with their green machines on the next attempt: Alonso went fastest, but Stroll went faster still.
Aston Martin drivers put in some encouraging times
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Leclerc responded with a 1m17.423s on his first attempt on softs but hadn’t been able to beat his fastest middle sector on that particular tour. He fixed that on his next run, posting a 1m17.277s, which withstood any further…
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