F1: Leclerc tops Verstappen in 2nd Melbourne Practice

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc set the fastest time in FP2 ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Scuderia teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. on Friday at the Australian Grand Prix.

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso put in a blistering lap to take P4 ahead of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, while Alonso’s teammate Esteban Ocon was sixth – but three-tenths down on the two-time champion.

“For me, today was a bit of a harder Friday,” said Leclerc. “FP1 was a bit tricky, I improved in terms of driving in FP2, but there is still quite a bit of work to do. I don’t think that anyone really put their lap together. Qualifying is tomorrow, when hopefully we’ll have a good run. Let’s push!”

“It has been an interesting Friday as we had to deal with a lot of new things compared to the last time that we raced here,” said Sainz.  “The track is completely different from what it used to be: it’s definitely faster, and the new tarmac feels totally different in terms of grip as far as I can remember. We need to keep working on understanding how the tires behave but, in general, I think we have a good baseline to start preparing for tomorrow’s qualifying.”

Verstappen complained of a lack of front grip early in the day but improved the car towards the end of running.

“P1 and beginning of P2 we were lacking a bit of balance,” the world champion said. “For the final run, we changed the car around a bit and I felt a lot happier.

“We are a tiny bit off Ferrari but I do think we can make it a little bit closer. But in the long run everything felt quite stable and quite nice so I am happy about that. We have little bit of work to do but we are more or less there.”

Leclerc underlined that he believed Red Bull had more potential than they had showed.

“They didn’t put the lap together,” Leclerc said. “Max had a bit of traffic in his fast lap so it is going to be very close and we will have to maximize our car to be starting on pole on Sunday.”

Valtteri Bottas’s medium tire pace was strong, but he dropped to seventh for Alfa Romeo when softs were equipped, finishing ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Norris’s team mate Daniel Ricciardo managed P10

In P11 was Mercedes’ George Russell while Lewis Hamilton took P13 for the Silver Arrows.

“Nothing we change on the car makes a difference at the moment,” Hamilton said, “so that’s the difficult thing.

“It’s just a tricky car. You’re trying to push and catch and even when you do a decent lap it’s 1.2 seconds down.”

Mercedes lowered the ride height of their car to try to gain performance but this led to further problems with “porpoising”. This is a high-frequency bouncing on the straights as the airflow under the car is disrupted and which has afflicted the Mercedes since it first hit the track.

Vettel needed an engine change after his expired in FP1 and the car was not ready for FP2 and therefore ended up 20th, without a time on the board – the team having had to replace his Mercedes power unit.

Vettel’s problems mean he will inevitably face grid penalties later in the year for using more than the permitted number of power-unit elements.

Practice 2 Results