Ferrari FP2 report: Charles Leclerc P1, Carlos Sainz P3

Scuderia Ferrari finisged the first free practice session on top of a one-two, as the Red Bulls were behind and the second practice session at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne brough more positive signs for the Maranello team ahead of the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.

There were plenty of cars out on track in the start of the second practice session and it was Charles Leclerc setting the early pace with a 1:20.898. His team-mates Carlos Sainz, fastest in P1, set the second-fastest time after his first run. Midway through the session, Carlos Sainz went two tenths faster than his Maranello teammate on the same soft tyres, so a strong start to the weekend for the Spaniard.

However, just a few moments later Fernando Alonso found speed in the Alpine and knocked Carlos off top spot! Just 0.031s the gap. That was a turn up for the books, but it didn’t last too long for Alpine: the Ferrari drivers responded immediately to retake the top two positions, although Alonso remained only 0.161s off top spot. The Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez then started their soft tyre laps: the Dutch driver was two tenths up through the first two sectors but then seemed to be hampered by traffic late on in the lap, while he had a few scruffy corners, too. Max Verstappen remained four-tenths off Carlos Sainz. He lost seven-tenths to the Ferrari in the final sector alone!

The qualy-simulations just kept on coming and Ferrari just kept on finding more speed: next up it was Charles Leclerc who extracted more as he posted a 1:18.979 to leapfrog his team-mate and establish a 0.4s buffer.

And that was the end of P2, with Scuderia Ferrari once again topping the timesheets, as the world championship leader Charles Leclerc finished ahead of Max Verstappen is second-fastest with P1 timesheet-topper Carlos Sainz third. Sergio Perez was fourth to make it a Ferrari-Red Bull lockout of the top four again. There has been no major improvement for Mercedes so far here at Albert Park and the eight-time Constructor’s Champions will continue to have some questions to answer heading into FP3.