Fernando Alonso was fastest in second practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the Spaniard set a 28.827 on the soft tyre going two-tenths faster than George Russell. Russell set his fastest time later in the session moving up the order with less than twenty minutes to go.
Alonso had a strong bounce back from Sakhir and was second in FP1, at the high-speed Jeddah circuit. While Russell looked to be second when he did his race runs, but he started his simulations later than the Red Bull.
Max Verstappen was third a tenth further behind as he attempted to get another lap of the soft tyres, but that didn’t pay off leaving him third three hundredths faster than Charles Leclerc. But while the Dutchman didn’t top the times, he still looks to be very strong on race pace.
Leclerc split the two Red Bulls as he went over a tenth faster than Sergio Perez as he spilt the teammates. The Ferrari driver had abandoned his second attempt on the same set of soft tyres, leaving him behind Russell who managed to get two attempts out of his soft tyres.
Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin sixth a quarter of a tenth behind his former teammate Perez. Aston had a very strong weekend last year in Jeddah, they are hoping that they can repeat the podium they had last year. The Canadian going over a tenth faster than Carlos Sainz.
However, he was given the warning after failing to follow the race director’s instruction on not cutting the track limit when powering down the main straight past the pit entrance and Lewis Hamilton pitting with just under five minutes to go after reporting a power problem aboard his Mercedes.
The seven-time champion didn’t appear happy during the closing stages struggling with the rear of the car, before complaining about a loss of power and losing the rear end at Turn Twenty-Two at the end of the session. Pierre Gasly put his Alpine ninth going six hundredths faster than Oscar Piastri.
Hamilton has been called to the stewards for an impeding incident with the Williams driver, as he closed in quickly on Sargeant as he was on his flying lap he had to take avoiding action over the right-hand kerb to avoid a collision.
For his part, Hamilton said over Mercedes team radio: “I didn’t realise someone was on a lap. I was trying to get out of the way for Sainz and all of a sudden there was a Williams there.”
It was just one of several near misses on the high speed narrow street circuit, which features several blind corners, with a big differential in speed between drivers on fast and slow laps.
Yuki Tsunoda was eleventh, the RB driver was six hundredths off a place in the top ten and nearly a tenth faster than Lando Norris as the Japanese driver split the two McLaren’s. Guanyu Zhou was two hundredths further behind and a hundredth ahead of Alex Albon.
Esteban Ocon spilt the two Williams drivers; he was a tenth faster than Logan Sargeant. The American saying the incident with Hamilton “was super dangerous. Like he was in the middle, I couldn’t get out of the way. Sargeant nearly crashed because of him.”
That was one of several instances of near-misses during the session on the wall-lined circuit which features several blind corners, with a big differential in speed between drivers on fast and slow laps.
Kevin Magnussen was seventeenth as he went nearly a tenth faster than his Haas teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Daniel Ricciardo went six hundredths faster than Valtteri Bottas who completed the field.
