2023 Saudi Arabia GP: Verstappen remains on top after FP2
17th March 2023Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped the timing boards, rounding out the day as the fastest man, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso who finished second-quickest.
In a similar fashion to FP1, as day turned into night for the second practice session in Saudi Arabia, the bulk of the drivers ventured out onto the circuit. After the first set of runs, Ferrari’s Spaniard topped the timing boards with a 1:31.080, 0.186s faster than his teammate, Charles Leclerc.
A replay soon showed Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was fortunate not to ruin his final practice session of the first day as the Japanese driver connected with the barrier in the final sector of the circuit. Luckily, Tsunoda was able to continue without any issues.
After the first 20 minutes of FP2, the Red Bull duo of Verstappen and Sergio Perez occupied as the fastest, and third-fastest, drivers on the track on the yellow-ringed compound tyres. At the same time, Alonso split the two Red Bulls in P2.
When the session moved into its second half, all of the drivers were outfitted with the red-walled soft compound tyres for the qualifying simulations. This comes as the conditions were representative of the qualifying and race sessions.
In the last 20 minutes of the session, Verstappen remained on top of the timing sheets ahead of Alonso and Perez respectively. At the other end of the table, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas sat as the slowest driver out on track behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Williams’s Logan Sargeant, who were 19th and 18th respectively.
In the dying stages of the session, replays showed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who stuttered out of the pit lane and slowly trundled through turns two and three. The Monegasque was heard over his team radio worried about issues with his clutch paddle. However, the Ferrari pit wall informed Leclerc he was okay to get on the throttle to continue on.
At the end of the session, the top three remained unchanged with Verstappen’s faster lap of 1:29.603. At the same time, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Mercedes’ George Russell rounded out the top five, in fourth and fifth.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly led the remaining drivers inside the top 10 with a lap that was 0.497 seconds slower than Verstappen’s time. The Frenchman sat in sixth ahead of; Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Nico Hulkenberg (Haas), Leclerc and Sainz who were seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th respectively.
That’s all for the article; 2023 Saudi Arabia GP: Verstappen remains on top after FP2!
Who is your early contender for pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix? Let us know in the comments!
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