Leclerc leads McLaren duo in FP2

Charles Leclerc led McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in second practice for Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix, with Ferrari finally showing more of its new car potential.

In the other SF-25, Lewis Hamilton finished fifth behind Racing Bulls driver Yuki Tsunoda, with a 0.4s gap to his session-leading team-mate.

Tsunoda, Norris and Williams driver Carlos Sainz enjoyed brief spells at the top of the times early in the one-hour session. Before Leclerc’s 1m16.794s best effort on the medium tyres, most cars were running established the initial benchmark.

At this stage around the one-third mark, Hamilton had slotted into second, although with a 0.4s gap to Leclerc on the same medium rubber.

As the field then trickled out for the mid-session qualifying simulation efforts, it was Tsunoda who finally toppled Leclerc with a 1m16.784s, as the McLaren drivers took longer to get up to speed with the soft tyres the pack had now switched too.

Just after Max Verstappen had abandoned his first softs run in a wayward Red Bull, Norris moved ahead with a 1m16.580s, as Piastri’s first flier on the red-walled rubber put him third.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

With under 30 minutes remaining, Leclerc put in his first run on the softs and moved back to the top – setting FP2’s best time at 1m16.439s.

Hamilton had posted his softs flier just before but he could not get ahead of Tsunoda, and both were then shuffled down by Piastri’s gain on a second qualifying simulation effort to leap to second and trail Leclerc by 0.124s, with Norris’s best a further 0.017s behind.

Another late gainer was Verstappen, who moved up to sit seventh behind Isack Hadjar in the other RB, who appeared to have an impeding moment with Norris at the start of the mid-session performance runs.

Verstappen had abandoned his first lap after going very deep at Turn 1 and then sliding at Turn 3, as the RB21 continued its recalcitrant start to the campaign.

Nico Hulkenberg emerged from a heavy early trip through the Turn 6 exit gravel to take eighth for Sauber, ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and lead Mercedes driver George Russell.

In the other W16, Andrea Kimi Antonelli ended FP2 ahead of Liam Lawson in the other Red Bull, while FP1 shunter Oliver Bearman missed the entire session after Haas could not complete the repairs in time.

The session concluded with the usual late-FP2 race-data-gathering long runs, which passed without major incidents – although Russell had a trip down the Turn 13 escape road late on.