The Istanbul ice rink played havoc with the timesheets earlier this morning and at the end of the afternoon session, so it will be interesting to see just how much of the true pace of these cars we’ll see in qualifying. For now that was certainly one of the more interesting practice sessions of 2020, as drivers said driving around a recently-laid Istanbul Park circuit was like “driving on ice”.
Neither Mercedes in the top two positions, unusually even for Friday practice. Verstappen topped the session with a 1:28.330. Charles Leclerc was four tenths behind in P2, while Mercedes pair Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton finished P3 and P4 respectively.
A combination of a wet track, a new surface, hard tyres and low temperatures made for a very tricky and unrepresentative first practice session on Friday morning. The drivers re-emerged on Friday afternoon hopeful of getting a better feel for this much-loved race track but there was still some very twitchy feet on the throttle in the initial stages.
Unsurprisingly, the drivers were not initially finding a whole lot of improvement switching to the softer red-striped tyres as Charles Leclerc was only able to shave a tenth off Albon’s previous best to move up to P1. Charles reported the softs “were so bad” as they were starting to grain really quickly on this circuit which was simply refusing to cooperate with these Formula 1 cars.
As Sebastian Vettel shot up to P2, four tenths behind Charles Leclerc, Sainz crept up inside the top 10 but was another driver to report that the soft tyres were “ripping apart” after just one lap.
Both Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were not finished there. The Dutchman pumped in a 1:28.984 to sit top but was promptly dislodged by Charles who took a two-tenth chunk out of Verstappen’s new personal best.
Turkish Grand Prix – Here are the complete results from the second practice session at the Istanbul Park circuit in Turkey:
Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 1:28.330
Charles Leclerc Ferrari +0.401
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.575
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.850
Alex Albon Red Bull Racing +1.033
Daniil Kvyat Alpha Tauri +1.359
Pierre Gasly Alpha Tauri +1.614
Sebastian Vettel Ferrari +1.692
Lance Stroll Racing Point +1.967
Lando Norris McLaren +2.577
Sergio Perez Racing Point +2.774
Esteban Ocon Renault +3.050
Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +3.163
Carlos Sainz McLaren +3.168
Daniel Ricciardo Renault +3.330
Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo +3.602
George Russell Williams +3.972
Romain Grosjean Haas +4.240
Kevin Magnussen Haas +4.477
Nicholas Latifi Williams +5.158
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