F1: Russell puts Mercedes on top in 2nd Miami GP practice

Mercedes is back!

Having fixed their porpoising problem, Mercedes F1 is back on top in F1, but it’s not Lewis Hamilton. Instead, it was George Russell who again beat Hamilton and turned the fastest lap in practice 2 with a time of 1m29.938s to beat the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc by 0.106s

Notably, Max Verstappen sat out the early part of the session after a precautionary gearbox change, and then lost steering on his only lap out there with an apparent hydraulics issue. Having failed to finish 50% of the races so far this season with reliability issues, this was far from ideal for the Dutchman.

Also having a bad session was Carlos Sainz Jr who lost control of his Ferrari and wadded up the left side.

A big spin in FP1 wrecked his soft tires and cost him his chance of some quick laps on the red-marked rubber. In need of laps, he then crashed in FP2 and lost the opportunity yet again to get a feel for those soft tires…He will have some real catching up to do on Saturday.

Sergio Perez was 3rd quick for Red Bull, 0.212s behind while Hamilton put the 2nd Mercedes 4th, 0.241s behind his Mercedes teammate.

As well as Mercedes making a step forward, a big talking point is the fact that yet again Russell is able to extract slightly more from the W13 than his teammate. Hamilton was sporting some flow vis paint on his front wing so was in data gathering mode for some of that session but even so… It’s catch up time for the former world champion.

Fernando Alonso rounded out the top-5 for Alpine, 0.434s back.

Practice 2 Results