F1 News: Lewis Hamilton tops 2nd Practice for Spanish GP

Mercedes veteran Lewis Hamilton turned a lap of 1m13.264s to top the 2nd practice session for the 2024 Spanish GP at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Hamilton’s fast lap was just 0.022s better than the #55 Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr.

Fast man in Practice 1, Lando Norris, was third, 0.055s behind Hamilton in is #4 McLaren.

Pierre Gasly was 0.179s behind Hamilton in his Alpine and Max Verstappen rounded out the top-5. Verstappen was not happy with his inferior Red Bull, 0.240s behind the Mercedes.

Charles Leclerc was 6th in his #16 Ferrari, 0.333s back.

Less than a second separated Hamilton in P1 and Ricciardo in P16 – it’s a quick circuit here, and not the longest on the calendar either so margins were always expected to be tight, but even so.

One mistake in qualifying could easily drop a driver out in Q1 tomorrow, which is going to make that a fascinating session.

Two hours of practice complete, one more hour to come. Will Red Bull find something overnight to get back into the mix? There will be plenty of data analysis going on late into this evening, especially for the teams with upgrades here.

But as it stands, it is advantage to Mercedes.

2024 Spanish GP Practice 2 Results