Charles Leclerc kept Ferrari on top of the times in the second Friday practice session.
He was almost two tenths quicker than Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, while championship leader Max Verstappen continued to struggled and finished the session down in seventh place.
Leclerc has also been summoned to the stewards after the session following an incident with Sergio Perez at the Villeneuve and Tosa corners. Perez got in the Ferrari driver’s way and Leclerc made a forceful pass on the Red Bull in retaliation. The stewards confirmed Perez is under investigation for impeding the Ferrari driver.
The second practice session of the day took place in near-identical conditions to the first, with bright sunshine and warm temperatures of 24C.
After many drivers struggled for grip in the opening practice hour, Pierre Gasly proved early what a challenge the circuit still was by spinning lightly at the Variante Alta chicane. Fernando Alonso expressed his frustration with Lewis Hamilton who twice got in his way in the space of two push lap attempts.
After Alexander Albon suffered a sudden shut-down on his Williams in the first practice session, he and team mate Logan Sargeant began the second session out of their cars as the team conducted heavy maintenance on both FW46s. However, Williams stated that there were no concerns with either of their cars and both Albon and Sargeant took to the track before the half-hour mark.
As he did in the opening session, Leclerc went quickest of all on the soft tyres early on with a 1’15.969, almost half a second quicker than team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr. Verstappen complained of his tyres overheating during his push lap on fresh softs, then like Alonso found the slow Mercedes of Hamilton i his way at the Villeneuve chicane on his next attempt.
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In the final 20 minutes of the session, focus turned to high fuel runs on the medium or hard compounds. Leclerc caught up to Perez’s Red Bull during his run and felt that he was being held up by him. As they entered the left hander of Tosa, Leclerc lunged to the inside and passed Perez cleanly, but forced the Red Bull to miss the apex. The stewards announced they would investigate both after the race over possible impeding.
At the chequered flag, Leclerc was secured at the top of the times for the second successive session. Piastri was second for McLaren with Yuki Tsunoda third for RB ahead of the two Mercedes of Hamilton and George Russell. Sainz was…
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