Saudi Arabia Grand Prix – Free Practice 2: Red Bull confirms, Alonso sandwiched

Like two weeks ago in Bahrain, this second practice session in Jeddah took place at night and allowed the teams to work in similar conditions to qualifying and the race.

As soon as the light turned green, Max Verstappen, followed by Fernando Alonso, took the lead in the ranking.

In the cool of the evening, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas both lock up their wheels at turn 1, while Yuki Tsunoda came with his AlphaTauri to leave his mark at turn 22, without consequences for the Japanese driver.

It took ten minutes to see Sergio Perez start his session and reach second position behind his teammate.

The only Alpine driver in the top 10 during free practice 1, Pierre Gasly, is this time joined by his teammate Esteban Ocon, who showed an encouraging pace by reaching the top 5.

After twenty minutes of practice, most of the drivers put on soft tires and Carlos Sainz, apparently lost in his thoughts, doesn’t pay attention to the slower cars and obstructs those who are on a fast lap, starting with Lance Stroll.

Verstappen lowers the benchmark to 1:29.603, two tenths ahead of Alonso still sandwiched between the two Red Bulls. Mercedes a bit behind at the start of the session, sees George Russell place his W14 in fifth, between the Alpines.

Hamilton, eleventh, half a second behind his teammate, seems to be struggling and has complained about his rear end, just like the Ferraris who finished the session more than seven and nine tenths off the pace.

Charles Leclerc spent the last few minutes worrying about his brand new engine, even though his team didn’t see anything abnormal in the data readings.

The classification of Free Practice 2