F1 French GP: Sainz heads Ferrari 1-2 in second practice

In the second one-hour session of the day run in sweltering, cloudless conditions at the Paul Ricard circuit, Alfa Romeo duo Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu led the pack out.

Bottas duly set the first place benchmark at 1m36.887s, with all the early running conducted on the medium compound tyres.

Zhou, Mick Schumacher and Esteban Ocon all set quicker times on their first FP2 fliers, with Fernando Alonso ending the opening five minutes on top thanks to a 1m35.531s on the yellow-walled rubber.

Just over five minutes later, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen surged ahead on a 1m35.386s, before he was quickly deposed by George Russell’s 1m34.810s.

The season’s big hitters – Ferrari and Red Bull – had yet to leave the pits at this stage, before Leclerc emerged just before the 15-minute mark and, on his first flier moved to the head of the times with a 1m34.182s, which immediately put him 0.6s clear of the pack.

Verstappen came out a few minutes after Leclerc and, as he did in FP1 and has done in many practices so far in 2022, immediately took the top spot – setting a 1m34.172s having done two warm-up laps on his mediums.

That topped the times at the end of the session’s first 20 minutes, at which point Sainz - who had missed FP2’s first third as Ferrari changed his car’s floor - headed out straight on the soft tyres.

The Spaniard took the red-walled rubber to purple sectors in all three segments and took first place with a 1m33.322s – an improvement of 0.850s over Verstappen’s best effort on the mediums.

A few minutes later, Leclerc came back out and was now running the softs, which he used to jump ahead of Sainz on a 1m33.136s as he edged out his team-mate in sectors one and three, while pretty matching him in the middle third to run 0.186s clear.

Sainz had pitted after his first softs flier and, after Ferrari had made a few adjustments, he returned to action on the same set of C2 softs.

Now running just past the session’s halfway point, Sainz recorded significant gains on Leclerc’s lap in all three sectors to blast back to the top spot with a 1m32.527s – getting a nice tow from Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri as he ran down the pit straight to close out his lap.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

By this stage, Verstappen had come out again to run the softs for the first time, but encountering understeer through the technical section at the end of the first sector meant he lapped well off Ferrari’s leading pace.

Verstappen started off 0.247s adrift of Sainz having been wrestling his RB18 through Turns 3 and 4, but then shipped another quarter of a second to end up 0.550s behind on a 1m33.077s.

Running behind Verstappen, Leclerc had, like Sainz previously, also pitted before heading out for a second run on the softs.

Here he gained 0.1s on Sainz’s best time in sector one before losing time through the rest of the lap – albeit with personal bests – to end up 0.101s behind.

At this stage, with just over 20 minutes to go, Lewis Hamilton slotted into fourth with his qualifying simulation effort on the softs – the seven-time world champion making his first on-track appearance at this event after giving up his Mercedes W13 to Nyck de Vries in FP1.

But Hamilton was shuffled back to fifth by team-mate Russell a few minutes later, with the Mercedes drivers finishing 0.764s and 0.990s behind Sainz respectively.

Lando Norris took sixth ahead of the lead home runner – Gasly – with Magnussen eighth and Daniel Ricciardo ninth in the second McLaren.

Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10 ahead of Alonso and Bottas.

Several drivers had off-track moments, with Schumacher’s the wildest in the early stages when the Haas driver lost the rear of his car on turn-in for Le Beausset and spun off across the large runoff area before stopping just short of the barriers, which meant he was able to retreat to the pits.

Russell ran heavily over the kerbs at the exit of Le Beausset a few moments later but, unlike Verstappen at the same spot in FP1, he quickly jinked left to try and avoid damaging his floor.

Magnussen later ran wide on the exit of the second corner and was likewise concerned the kerbs had damaged his car, while Russell also had to catch a late snap through the Turns 3/4 chicane and shot through the runoff claiming he could not “get to the bollard” far to the left in the runoff as required by the race director’s event requirements.

FP2 result:

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Gap
1	Carlos Sainz		Ferrari	22
2	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	22	0.101
3	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	17	0.550
4	George Russell		Mercedes	20	0.764
5	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	23	0.990
6	Lando Norris		McLaren	21	1.080
7	Pierre Gasly		AlphaTauri	24	1.379
8	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	24	1.401
9	Daniel Ricciardo		McLaren	23	1.457
10	Sergio Perez		Red Bull	16	1.533
11	Fernando Alonso		Alpine	24	1.732
12	Valtteri Bottas		Alfa Romeo	27	1.737
13	Sebastian Vettel		Aston Martin	27	1.893
14	Yuki Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	24	2.013
15	Lance Stroll		Aston Martin	26	2.068
16	Alex Albon		Williams	23	2.126
17	Zhou Guanyu		Alfa Romeo	26	2.127
18	Esteban Ocon		Alpine	26	2.133
19	Mick Schumacher		Haas	22	2.668
20	Nicholas Latifi		Williams	27	2.885
View full results