Charles Leclerc leads Isack Hadjar and Lando Norris in FP2 at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
Green Light
As FP2 approached, everyone was unsurprisingly eager to get some dry track time in as they queued at pit exit. This session had a 90% chance of rain as we began and rain was expected to be disruptive.
Early laps left Max Verstappen in front with a 1:37.785 with George Russell and Charles Leclerc behind within 0.200s. After these early runs drivers began to struggle, particularly with understeer around the lap. Tyre degradation could be an issue this weekend as drivers could not improve on a second lap, especially on the soft tyre.
As always at this track, the weather remained a concern throughout the whole session. Despite the high chance of rain, it was a dry session with only some light raindrops reported by a few drivers.
Sepang Bites Back
We saw a lot of drivers struggling through this session. Understeer affected many drivers through some of the sweeping corners, as well as through the Turn 15 hairpin. This became a bigger issue as understeer took the drivers over the aggressive kerbs around the track. The kerbs are high, and driving over them often leads to scraping the floor. This was shown by Gabriel Bortoleto, whose car suffered floor damage after riding the kerb sent him over the grass. Bortoleto ended up parking his Audi on track at the end of the session due to worries about the gearbox. This could be a result of his off-roading as these gearboxes do not often agree with being banged around.
Tyre degradation is expected to be a huge factor throughout the weekend. It’s clear that the soft tyre will likely be a one lap tyre in qualifying as the tyre began to fall away even at the end of their first flying lap. The mediums are not looking overly robust either though. We saw 11 lap old mediums on Bortoleto’s car just beginning to fall apart as he was attempting to put an overtake on Arvid Lindblad.
Keep an eye on track limits throughout the weekend. The understeer combined with aggressive kerbs saw many drivers sent just over the white line in this session. It’s easily done through the sweeping corners and could easily cause issues in qualifying.
Busy Stewards
There were a few incidents to interest the stewards in this session.
Lewis Hamilton was called to the stewards after a close call with Bortoleto. As Bortoleto tried to get by Hamilton on a flying lap, the Brit pulled onto the racing line in the braking zone, leaving Bortoleto to take avoiding action. Hamilton did report he could not see anything in his mirrors, which may need to be addressed, as this is the latest in a long list of impeding issues for him. He has already received two reprimands this season as a result of incidents in practice. If he receives three more this season, he could see a 10-place grid penalty headed his way.
The pit lane entry at Turn 15 caused some unexpected issues this session. Turn 15 saw a number of lock ups and severe understeer throughout the session and the position of pit entry became a problem. We saw both Mercedes drivers accidentally end up in the pit lane after locking up into Turn 15. Kimi Antonelli was handed a black and white flag after entering on the right of the pit lane bollard before skipping over the grass to get back on track. If this continues into Sunday it could cause issues in the race as committing to the right side of the bollard means you must then commit to the pit lane. If anyone were to repeat Antonelli’s move in the Grand Prix, they would likely end up with a 5 second penalty.
Chequered Flag
As the chequered flag waved, it was Charles Leclerc leading the field. He set a 1:37.528 in the middle of the session which was enough to remain on top. Isack Hadjar came home just 0.100s behind in P2 and Lando Norris 0.137s behind in P3. Both Mercedes drivers did not set a soft tyre lap at the end, so we can expect them to be further up the field throughout the weekend. In this session they finished with George Russell in P7 and Kimi Antonell in P8.
It was a more encouraging session for McLaren as they came home with Lando Norris in P3 and Oscar Piastri in P6. If McLaren can keep the pace up throughout the weekend we could see all four top teams in a battle for the podium positions in the Grand Prix, which has been a rare sight this season.
Image Credit: Formula One on X