Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes topped the times as practice at Formula 1’s 2024 Spanish Grand Prix got under way, while Red Bull and Max Verstappen appeared to be struggling.
But, digging beyond the headline times in FP2 reveals that Verstappen and co are far from panicking – with a major set-up change coming for his RB20 on Saturday that will bring both one-lap and long-run gains.
At the same time, Mercedes is quietly confident it can stay in the hunt more so than at other events this season where it has looked strong early in a weekend before fading.
Add in fast times over fliers and strong long-run pace from McLaren and Ferrari, and there is hope a theorised four-way fight for Barcelona supremacy will play out in the sessions that matter.
The story of the day
Given the major demand on tyres at Barcelona and the value of stability for early aerodynamic data at this familiar venue, FP1 was a rather sedate affair. George Russell, Verstappen and Carlos Sainz exchanged the top spot between them during the initial installation running on the harder compounds.
Verstappen then led the switch to softs before he was pipped by 0.024s courtesy of Lando Norris and the Briton’s FP1-topping 1m14.228s. After a brief red flag period as debris from Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin was collected from Campsa (Turn 9), the field switched to higher fuel running.
Norris broke out of the traps fastest in FP1, and was close to the summit in FP2 later in the afternoon
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
In FP2, Mercedes led from the off – with Russell heading the leading gaggle on the medium tyres. Sainz was the first of the frontrunners to switch to the softs and his time was only beaten by Hamilton’s session leading 1m13.264s – an effort set five minutes later.
Pierre Gasly slotted his Alpine into a shock fourth place on his FP2 qualifying simulation effort, before Hamilton tried on a second set of softs and failed to better his previous time. Sergio Perez completed his soft-tyre running much later than the rest as Red Bull made numerous set-up tweaks, with the Mexican driver ending up down in 13th and 0.577s off Verstappen’s fifth-place time.
The field then conducted the typical FP2 long-run data-gathering exercises regarding tyre life, which was notable only for Ferrari spending a long time altering Charles Leclerc’s set-up (the Monaco winner having called his car “horrendous” in FP1 when he was having to catch…
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