F1 Australian GP: Leclerc fastest in FP2, Verstappen second

A 1m17.277s from Leclerc, his second hot lap on soft tyres, gave him a handy advantage over the rest of the field and put him clear of then runner-up Carlos Sainz, who was shuffled down to third by Verstappen's later second soft run.

The Dutchman had been late to parlay with the other runners in FP2 owing to a spot of damage to his Red Bull RB20, sustained in a kerb strike during FP1, and thus continued running on the mediums as the others had long since switched to softs.

After collecting the soft tyres, Verstappen proceeded to match Sainz's time to the thousandth, 0.43s short of Leclerc's session best.

The Dutchman's next lap was the last one that changed the order on the timing screens, as the rest of the field switched to longer runs across both the soft and medium tyres, and overturned Sainz by half a tenth on his next effort on the red-walled Pirellis.

Leclerc had topped the times during the early runs on medium tyres, setting a 1m17.936s with a healthy dose of tows along the straights - which made up for being hampered on his first hot lap of the Albert Park circuit early in the session.

This displaced Lando Norris' 1m18.201s time also set on the mediums, the Briton having been top of FP1 earlier on in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso was first to take a set of softs and his first sector suggested that he was in line to move to the top of the pile, but a less stellar middle sector took the wind out of the Spaniard's sails and left him just short of Leclerc's then-headliner.

His Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll then set an impressive first sector too, following that up with a personal best in the second, but denied himself a chance to go fastest after fluffing his lines at Turn 13; the Canadian got acquainted with the grass and sapped away at his time.

The Aston Martin pair made up for it, however; Alonso moved Leclerc off the top on his next effort, but Stroll found a time 0.09s quicker than his veteran team-mate to sit atop the order as the session moved towards the half-way mark.

Leclerc reclaimed his place at the zenith of the timing board with a 1m17.423s with purple sectors in the first and third splits, although had not been able to beat his earlier best in the middle portion of the lap.

The Monegasque addressed that on his next attempt, poking home a 1m17.277s to further extend his advantage over Stroll, before Sainz then produced a 1m17.707s to move into second. Verstappen then split the Ferraris in the final 15 minutes.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, leaves the pit lane

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Stroll's time over Alonso ensured that the ex-Williams driver ended the session in fourth, while George Russell sat behind the two-time champion in sixth.

Russell had matched team-mate Lewis Hamilton's Turn 1 excursion from FP1 as the Mercedes W15 continued to look somewhat flighty over the course of a lap, but rallied to claim a position in the top six.

Home hero Oscar Piastri was 0.8s shy of Leclerc's time to sit seventh overall, a smidgen clear of Sergio Perez, while Norris and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top half of the order.

Sauber's Zhou Guanyu was 11th, having earlier baulked Verstappen on the exit of Turn 4 owing to a late radio call to move over, while Daniel Ricciardo beat Logan Sargeant to 12th.

Sargeant had sustained a spin after the opening 10 minutes of the session while on a personal best lap, where he took a liberal amount of kerb into Turn 11 and unsettled the rear as he attempted to wrestle his car over the exit run-off, ultimately with a wheel dipped into the gravel.

His Williams team-mate Alex Albon did not take part in FP2 following his shunt in the opening practice session of the day, where he clipped the Turn 7 kerb and was pitched into a side-on hit into the next barrier. Williams does not have a spare chassis, and is assessing if Albon's car can be repaired for FP3 on Saturday.