F1 Australian GP live commentary and updates - FP2
Updates live from the second practice session at Albert Park
Live Standings
Live Text
And that's a wrap for Friday practice! Stick with Autosport and Motorsport.com throughout the weekend for all the news, analysis, and any other items of interest - and we'll catch you bright and early tomorrow for FP3 and qualifying. Bye for now!
Ollie Bearman sat out the entirety of FP2 after his FP1 prang with the wall - he was unable to make it out in time for a last-ditch lap or two. Lots of work for him to do in FP3 tomorrow.
Leclerc headlines FP2 over McLarens, Tsunoda
Charles Leclerc's 1m16.439s is enough to remain top of the FP2 order, with Oscar Piastri second and Lando Norris third. Tsunoda, Hamilton, Hadjar, Verstappen, Hulkenberg, Stroll, and Russell complete the top 10.
McLaren race pace, as the stint goes on, looks pretty good as the Ferrari's got a bit more drop-off. The Mercs are looking decent on the hard tyre too.
On the last lap, Verstappen was pretty much on-par with Tsunoda until the final sector, when he found over 0.3s on the Racing Bulls driver. Is Red Bull running heavy, or is it not really at the races at the moment? Probably the former - although it must be said Tsunoda's tyres are multiple laps older...
Russell and Antonelli do look pretty similar on pace so far; the young Italian might need to work on his Turn 6 exits as he's losing time in S2, but it's encouraging so far.
Lawson's race runs don't look particularly stellar at this point; he's losing a couple of tenths to Antonelli per sector - and the Mercedes driver is on a harder grade of tyre. A baptism of fire for the Kiwi at Red Bull.
Having a little look at the long-run times on mediums so far, the McLaren and Ferrari of Norris and Leclerc respectively are evenly matched in S1, but S2 and S3 seems to benefit the McLaren a little more. How that changes with degradation will remain to be seen - but we'll keep an eye on it.
It's amazing how hard the right rear tyre gets worked. You can visibly see the compression. Hulkenberg, Norris and one of the Mercedes cars are generating a lot of sparks.
Antonelli had to duck out of the way down the runoff area when the drivers embarked on qualifying laps. This is by far the sketchiest part of the the track regarding slower traffic. The blue flag man is getting quite the workout!
Heading up to the fearsomely fast Turn 9-10 combination. The direction changes here truly are awe inspiring. Martin Brundle seems to agree. He has also picked this spot to do live interventions for TV.
Photo by: Filip Cleeren
We're back to the harder grades of tyre now, as the longer runs begin for the final 20 minutes. Obviously, this all goes out of the window if there's rain on Sunday - but you can't not run, just in case it holds off.
"We've been spending most our lives living in a traffic paradise"
Good lap from Hulkenberg, who goes up to eighth - 0.722s off Leclerc's benchmark. He's just under a tenth behind Verstappen, who moves up to seventh.
It's a 1m16.439s for Leclerc, who returns to the top - 0.141s clear of Norris' lap. Piastri then slots into second, splitting Leclerc and Norris at the top end, but still 0.124s away from the Monegasque's benchmark.
Verstappen aborts a potential lap as his Red Bull fails to bite at Turn 3 - as Norris now goes quickest with a 1m16.580s.
Tsunoda now goes quickest on softs with a 1m16.784s, a tenth quicker than Leclerc's medium benchmark.
Antonelli gives us a glimpse of what he can do on softs, and he's using all of the circuit - and then some, with a few wides. Somehow, he's only 0.8s off the best lap...
Opening 20 minutes are out of the way; now, we've got a handful of drivers emerging on softs. It's quali sim time!
Top 10 after opening 20 minutes
As we reach a bit of a lull, the top 10 looks like this: Leclerc, Hamilton, Sainz, Russell, Norris, Piastri, Albon, Tsunoda, Hadjar, Doohan.
Norris set a purple first sector, but appeared to abandon his lap. That opened the stage for Leclerc to post a 1m16.794s, our first time in the 1m16s of the weekend, to go fastest. Hamilton goes second, 0.4s down on his team-mate.
Leclerc endured a scruffy lap, and got very baulked by Lawson on the lead-up at Turn 13. It's like F1 hasn't been away...
A couple of excursions in the meantime; Norris gets a big swapper on at Turn 3, while Hulkenberg skips across the gravel at Turn 6. The drivers are going great guns out there - and Albert Park does tend to amplify mistakes.
It's a 1m17.302s for Sainz, who goes fastest. His new team-mate Alex Albon goes third, so Williams is looking in decent nick so far.
Russell puts those hard tyres into action and does a 1m17.565s to go fastest. Leclerc and Piastri shuffle Verstappen down to fifth in the meantime.
Norris posts a 1m17.671s to go top on the medium tyre. Everyone's on the yellow-walled tyre apart from the Mercedes duo (hards) and Bearman (nothing, as his car's still being fixed).
Nico Hulkenberg has the safety plug from his fire extinguisher loose, so he's got to bring his Sauber in. Thankfully, the extinguisher hasn't gone off...
Gasly kicks us off with a 1m19.146s, but the times are very quickly back into the 1m17s - Tsunoda does a 1m17.949s.
We'll have Fil Cleeren reporting from trackside once again, so we'll bring you his snippets of info once he's in place. Albert Park is one of the better trackside experiences on the calendar, so we're very jealous.
FP2 opens for business
And we're off! Bortoleto and Gasly hit the road first.
FP2 will be underway shortly. Expect a few quali simulations in the opening 30 minutes, and then it'll likely transition into race runs for the second half as the teams prepare for the big-ticket sessions on Saturday and Sunday.
Encouragingly, the top 13 drivers were all within a second of Norris' time in FP1. But, at the same time, it's FP1; both Fred Vasseur and James Vowles stated in the team principals' presser that it's WAY to early to draw conclusions...
...but to quote the bloke who played Barry in Eastenders, "we're gonna do it anyway"
FP1 recap
For those who missed FP1, here's a little taster: Lando Norris headlined the session - just 0.149s clear of Williams' Carlos Sainz, with Charles Leclerc third.
There were two red flags in the session; one for a mere smattering of gravel at Turn 7, and another for this incident with Ollie Bearman:
Hello again everyone - we're back and ready for all of the action as it unfolds as Melbourne gears up for FP2! We hope you've got coffee, or any other caffeinated beverage of your choosing...
By: Autosport Staff
Chat