Hamilton keeps rolling, building on last week’s win in Portugal.
MONTMELO, Spain—Lewis Hamilton has always done well at the Spanish Grand Prix, and his victory last week gave him an incentive to improve even more. On Friday afternoon, the defending world champion clocked a 1:18:170 fastest time to take Practice Two at the Circuit de Catalunya. His time was one-tenth ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas and third place Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
Bottas took the first-morning session but could not stay even with Hamilton in the afternoon. That’s because Hamilton improved his time midway through the afternoon by taking the fastest lap on softer tires.
The track, which many drivers use for testing, does not usually have too many incidents, and Friday had only two. Alfa Romeo tester Robert Kubica ran wide in the morning session and spun at the newly designed turn 10, beaching himself into the heavy gravel. Then, in the afternoon, a piece of front wing from an unknown car caused a virtual safety car to be deployed with 48 minutes left in the session.
Among the teams, the Alpine Renaults continued to improve with new upgrades, placing Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso fourth and fifth. Alpha Tauri finished their drivers in the next two positions with Pierre Gasly in sixth and Yuki Tsunoda in seventh. Carlos Sainz took eighth in the second Ferrari, while Red Bull had an awful day, with Max Verstappen in ninth and his teammate Sergio Perez in tenth.
Verstappen needs to improve more on Saturday, and ending the second session without showing any true pace did not make things any better. And both Red Bulls–as well as the McLaren’s with Lando Norris in 12th and Daniel Ricciardo in 15th–also need to improve.
The Ferraris and the surprising Alpine team are expecting to make this race weekend very competitive.
