Qatar Grand Prix – Free Practice 2: Bottas takes over
Valtteri Bottas led his Mercedes at the front of the second free practice session of the Qatar Grand Prix. He is ahead of an excellent Pierre Gasly and the two championship leaders.
We take the same and start over, or almost. This second free practice session of the Qatar Grand Prix gave birth to the same top three as in the first session. The only difference is that Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen have switched positions.
The Finnish driver set the fastest time in 1.23.148 with over 2 tenths of a second ahead of Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri.
In a crucial session for the drivers, as it was held at the time of the start of the Grand Prix on Sunday, lap times improved by several tenths compared to those from the morning. The participants in the World Championship took advantage of a better understanding of the track and cooler temperatures to fine-tune their settings for the rest of the weekend.
The start of the session was marked by a slight discomfort between the two Mercedes and especially by rear wing issues at Red Bull. In the pit straight with the DRS open, the flaps of the Austrian cars were moving a lot, causing Verstappen and Pérez to be stuck in the garage for several minutes.
Back on track, the Dutch driver struggled with understeer, but that didn’t stop him from finishing ahead of his rival on the timesheet. In fact, Lewis Hamilton finished fourth in this session and also had to deal with an issue on his car with the front wing.
The end of the session was quite calm despite a few off-track excursions to report for Leclerc, Hamilton, and Gasly. The drivers mainly took the opportunity to drive with hard tires and more fuel to prepare for the race.
In the standings, the two Mercedes seem slightly more comfortable than the Red Bulls, with both of them in the top 4 while Pérez could not do better than eighth.
Very good overall performance from AlphaTauri as Yuki Tsunoda finishes 7th, which bodes well in the battle against Alpine, who fail to make it into the top 10.
Finally, it is worth noting the resurgence of form for Aston Martin with the sixth time for Lance Stroll and the ninth for Sebastian Vettel.
| N° | Driver | Team | Times | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bottas | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport | 1:23.148 | 27 | |
| 2 | Gasly | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:23.357 | +0.209 | 27 |
| 3 | Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | 1:23.498 | +0.350 | 20 |
| 4 | Hamilton | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport | 1:23.570 | +0.422 | 25 |
| 5 | Norris | McLaren F1 Team | 1:23.632 | +0.484 | 24 |
| 6 | Stroll | Cognizant Aston Martin Racing | 1:23.705 | +0.557 | 26 |
| 7 | Tsunoda | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:23.735 | +0.587 | 28 |
| 8 | Perez | Red Bull Racing | 1:23.787 | +0.639 | 20 |
| 9 | Vettel | Cognizant Aston Martin Racing | 1:24.020 | +0.872 | 27 |
| 10 | Sainz Jr. | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:24.033 | +0.885 | 28 |
| 11 | Ocon | Alpine F1 Team | 1:24.041 | +0.893 | 29 |
| 12 | Alonso | Alpine F1 Team | 1:24.056 | +0.908 | 25 |
| 13 | Leclerc | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:24.095 | +0.947 | 23 |
| 14 | Ricciardo | McLaren F1 Team | 1:24.135 | +0.987 | 24 |
| 15 | Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:24.631 | +1.483 | 26 |
| 16 | Russell | Williams Racing | 1:24.954 | +1.806 | 27 |
| 17 | Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:25.072 | +1.924 | 23 |
| 18 | Latifi | Williams Racing | 1:25.209 | +2.061 | 28 |
| 19 | Schumacher | Haas F1 Team | 1:25.575 | +2.427 | 27 |
| 20 | Mazepin | Haas F1 Team | 0 |
