F1: Verstappen rebounds to top Practice 2 for Miami GP (2nd Update)

—by Mark Cipolloni—

Defending Miami GP winner Max Verstappen rebounded from being only 4th quick in opening practice to set the fastest time in Practice 2 for the Miami GP Friday afternoon .

Verstappen’s lap of 1m27.930s in his #1 Red Bull Honda was  0.385s faster than the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. and 0..468s ahead of Charles Leclerc in the 2nd Ferrari who crashed out late in the session.

Leclerc brought out the only red flag of FP2 when he wrestled with a snap of oversteer, locked up and sent his Ferrari front-first into the barriers at Turn 7 with 10 minutes remaining.”Yeah, I crashed into the barriers ,” he said, sounding subdued on the radio.

Sergio Perez in the 2nd Red Bull and Fernando Alonso in the #14 Aston Martin rounded out the top-5.

Lando Norris briefly led the session when soft-tired running began but the McLaren driver fell to P6, ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
Lance Stroll took P8 for Aston Martin, a second off the pace, while Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was just 0.007s back in P9 and Alex Albon was a whisker off in P10 for Williams, with a brief lock-up hampering his qualifying simulation.

Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll has been fined €500 for twice speeding in the pit lane during second practice for the Miami Grand Prix.

The Canadian was found to have breached the speed limit on two occasions, though punishments during practice carry less weight than in qualifying or the race.

So it is advantage Verstappen headed into qualifying day then, but as Leclerc showed, the smallest of errors can have very big consequences. He was fractions off the racing line and that was enough of a loss of grip to cost him his front wing and some lap time.

So that’s that for Friday practice, with Verstappen finishing fastest in the afternoon session ahead of Sainz and Leclerc. The gaps wound up bigger than they looked like being at times, with the Dutchman really nailing his last flying lap earlier on.

Perhaps Johnny Herbert said it best, “If everyone drove the Red Bull now, then I say Max would still be the fastest today. There’s not much more to it, it’s purely based on where he is now in his career and what we see him do every weekend.”

Practice 2 Results