Valtteri Bottas remained the fastest driver in the second free practice for the Emilia Romagna GP where he was one hundredth faster than Lewis Hamilton while Max Verstappen drove only five laps due to an early car problem.

Ferrari drivers took the top of the standings at the start of training where the track temperature was around 23 degrees Celsius and the air around 13 degrees, and Leclerc set an early fastest time of 1:17.076.

Hamilton knocked down Leclerc’s time to 1:16.940, but Leclerc soon retaliated with a 1:16.705 lap while Bottas took first place two minutes later with a 1:16.468.

The world champion fights back with a 1:16.227 while Verstappen stopped on the track only ten minutes after the start of second practice due to problems with the transmission system, so his time of 1:16.999 remained his best until the end of FP2.

Bottas was the first to descend at 1:15 with a lap of 1:15.551 on medium tyres ahead of Hamilton and Gasly while Leclerc set 1:15.367 eight minutes before the half hour mark which was later deleted due to track limits abuse.

Gasly took second place in the AlphaTauri with a lap of 1:15.629 before Hamilton took second place on the soft with just a 0.010 second slower lap than his teammate while Sainz drove a half-second faster lap than Leclerc for fourth and fifth place for Ferrari.

Drivers in the last twenty minutes focused on longer runs with more fuel to test the behavior of the tyres in the conditions that await them in the race so we didn’t see a lot of fast laps affecting the final order.

Bottas remained the fastest on medium tyres, unlike almost all other drivers who used soft in their best laps, one hundredth ahead of his teammate Hamilton, and Gasly was third for AlphaTauri with 0.078 seconds behind the fastest time while Ferrari drivers Sainz and Leclerc remained fourth and fifth fastest.

2021 Emilia Romagna GP Imola Hamilton Mercedes F1 W12 in the air Variante Alta FP1 hard Pirelli tyres C2 Photo Daimler
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W12, 2021 Emilia Romagna GP (Photo: Daimler)

Leclerc crashed four minutes before the end of FP1 after a brief loss of control and oversteering in the second Rivazza corner entry and crashed into a wall, causing a red flag and earlier FP2 finish.

Perez couldn’t keep up with Mercedes ’pace in one fast lap so he finished sixth sixth for Red Bull with Tsunoda seventh fastest for AlphaTauri, eight-tenths behind teammate Gasly.

Norris was a faster McLaren driver in eighth place with a nine-tenths gap behind Bottas while Giovinazzi was a faster Alfa Romeo driver with a 0.028-second slower lap than Norris.

Stroll was again faster than Vettel in tenth place for Aston Martin and was the first driver to be more than a second behind the fastest Bottas and Latifi was again faster than Russell in Williams FW43B in 12th place and separated Alpine drivers Ocon and Alonso.

Verstappen’s car was returned to the garage half an hour before the end of FP2, but Red Bull failed to prepare it before the end of the session so the Dutchman finished only 14th fastest with only five laps.

Vettel was only 15th in second Aston Martin, four-tenths behind Stroll, and Russell was 16th for Williams, three-tenths behind Latifi. Raikkonen was 17th in Alfa Romeo ahead of Ricciardo in McLaren on medium tyres while Schumacher and Mazepin took the final two places in the second free practice.

The third free practice is scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 while the qualifying begins at 14:00.

FP2 RESULTS

1 77 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:15.551 25
2 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.561 0.010 26
3 10 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 1:15.629 0.078 30
4 55 Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari 1:15.834 0.283 30
5 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:16.371 0.820 28
6 11 Sergio Pérez Red Bull/Honda 1:16.411 0.860 25
7 22 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri/Honda 1:16.419 0.868 26
8 4 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:16.485 0.934 23
9 99 A.Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:16.513 0.962 25
10 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:16.737 1.186 25
11 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine/Renault 1:16.817 1.266 27
12 6 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 1:16.823 1.272 29
13 14 Fernando Alonso Alpine/Renault 1:16.835 1.284 27
14 33 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:16.999 1.448 5
15 5 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:17.092 1.541 27
16 63 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:17.179 1.628 31
17 7 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:17.273 1.722 27
18 3 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren/Mercedes 1:17.281 1.730 24
19 47 Mick Schumacher Haas/Ferrari 1:17.350 1.799 28
20 9 Nikita Mazepin Haas/Ferrari 1:17.857 2.306 16
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