F1 Russian GP: Bottas leads Mercedes 1-2 in FP2, Giovinazzi crashes

Max Verstappen, running a new Honda power unit, which means he will start the Sochi race from the back of the grid, ended up down in sixth behind Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon.

As discussions between F1, the FIA and the teams continued over the impact of the expected heavy rain on Saturday, most of the pack hit the track immediately as the one-hour session began to make the most of what was likely to be the final dry running before Sunday.

Daniel Ricciardo was the only exception as the Australian missed the opening third of the session as McLaren worked to change his car’s engine to a previously used unit after detecting a problem with the engine he had been running in FP1 over the lunch break.

Kimi Raikkonen posted the first time of the session – 1m37.019s on the medium tyres – before he was soon deposed by Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz Jr, who were also running the yellow-walled rubber.

Charles Leclerc then used the soft tyres to go quickest as the first five minutes ended, the Ferrari driver beating his team-mate with a 1m35.508s.

Valtteri Bottas, also running the mediums, then moved ahead on a 1m35.298s, before Leclerc edged ahead again with a 1m34.925s as his run on the softs continued.

At the 15-minute mark, with most of the pack back in the pits, Fernando Alonso used the softs to go quickest on a 1m34.762s.

After 20 minutes had passed, Verstappen and the two Mercedes cars started their qualifying simulation efforts, with Bottas leading the trio around.

His 1m33.593s put him back into first place, as Verstappen trailed behind 1.028s off the Finn’s pace.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Hamilton, who had knocked over Mercedes’ front jack operator when he returned to the pits after his early running, the W11 overshooting its marks as it had been left with its ‘magic’ brake-bias-altering system still activated by the world champion when he braked entering the pitbox, was the last of the trio to go for a soft-tyre flying effort.

He was ahead of Bottas by a tenth in sector one, where he sit the session’s fastest time, but lost time to his team-mate over the remaining two-thirds of the lap – Bottas and Alonso ended FP2 with the fastest times in the second and third sectors respectively – and ended up 0.044s behind.

Just after this, Leclerc half-spun his SF21 out of the high-speed Turn 8 after putting his right-side wheels onto the astroturf strip behind the kerbs at the exit of the corner, but he was able to gather things up and continue without issue – Sergio Perez dodging around the Ferrari as he arrived on the scene a moment later in his Red Bull.

The session was well into the traditional FP2 long-run data-gathering exercises in the second half when proceedings were halted by Giovinazzi’s crash.

The Italian had a very similar slip to Leclerc at the same corner, but he spun off backwards at high-speed and crashed into the barriers behind the Turn 8 runoff, which destroyed the rear-end of his car.

Giovinazzi began to drive away from the incident but was ordered to stop by Alfa as he was “losing parts” and, with the barriers he had hit also needing to be rearranged, the session was therefore stopped.

Antonio Giovinazzi, Alfa Romeo Racing C41 crashes during practice

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

It resumed after a 10-minute delay and the long-run efforts resumed, during which Verstappen complained about the top-speed of his FP2 set-up and Hamilton at one stage slid along the raised ‘sausage’ kerb exiting the Turn 10 right that leads onto the meandering back ‘straight’ after carrying too much speed into the right-hander.

Gasly had forged ahead of Norris as the qualifying simulation efforts concluded, ending up 0.252s behind Bottas’s best time.

But the AlphaTauri driver’s session ended dramatically when his front wing broke off after he had bounced hard over the sausage kerb at the second apex of Turn 2 while following Ricciardo in the closing minutes and the Frenchman had to tour slowly back to the pits.

With Ocon getting ahead of Verstappen to take fifth with his best time on the softs, Sainz ended up seventh, while Alonso was shuffled back to eighth.

Sebastian Vettel was ninth and Leclerc rounded out the top 10, ahead of Perez and Raikkonen, who at one point during the red flag period reported he was still feeling discomfort from getting something in his eye during FP1.

Ricciardo recorded the least amount of laps of any driver as result of his late start to FP2, the Monza winner ending up down in 17th ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and the Haas pair.

F1 Russian GP free practice 2 results

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Time	Gap
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'33.593
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'33.637	0.044
3	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	Honda	1'33.845	0.252
4	Lando Norris	McLaren	Mercedes	1'34.154	0.561
5	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	Renault	1'34.402	0.809
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	Honda	1'34.621	1.028
7	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'34.678	1.085
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	Renault	1'34.762	1.169
9	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	Mercedes	1'34.837	1.244
10	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'34.925	1.332
11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	Honda	1'34.938	1.345
12	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	1'35.052	1.459
13	George Russell	Williams	Mercedes	1'35.094	1.501
14	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	1'35.178	1.585
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	Mercedes	1'35.334	1.741
16	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	Mercedes	1'35.411	1.818
17	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	Mercedes	1'35.630	2.037
18	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	Honda	1'35.954	2.361
19	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	Ferrari	1'36.099	2.506
20	Mick Schumacher	Haas	Ferrari	1'36.230	2.637
View full results