Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix – Free Practice 2: Russell sets the pace

For the first time this weekend, the single-seaters took to the track in dry conditions. It was therefore important for the drivers to complete as many laps as possible during this second free practice session to have the best possible preparation for the Sprint race on Saturday afternoon.

Many mechanical problems

Unfortunately for some drivers, this objective was going to be difficult to achieve. The cars of Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, and Daniel Ricciardo were stuck in the garages, due to various mechanical issues.

Later in the session, Lando Norris was also forced to stay in his garage due to problems with his brakes. While the British driver was fortunate enough to be able to go out towards the end of the session, his teammate and Valtteri Bottas were not. The three men finished at the bottom of the standings.

Some very fast Mercedes

If Lewis Hamilton displayed a good pace at the start of the session by achieving the 2nd best time, only two tenths behind Perez, the Briton was not quite comfortable with his car yet, as evidenced by his small excursion onto the grass when braking for the 14th turn.

At the halfway point, Russell came to the top of the timesheet. With soft tires, the Briton set a time of 1.19.457, placing him 3 tenths ahead of Perez. The two Mercedes had a very good pace during this session. Could there be a possible comeback of the Silver Arrows into the points in the sprint race?

Red Bull confirms their competitiveness.

After ten minutes of the session, both Perez and Verstappen’s Red Bulls set the fastest times on the leaderboard. While Perez consistently improved his reference time in the first part of the season, his endurance was even more impressive. The Mexican driver provided great longevity to his soft tires, completing no less than 19 laps with them.

This could suggest that Red Bull could complete the entire sprint race on soft tires. However, it could prove to be difficult as Perez was complaining a lot on the radio about the grip of his tires during his last laps. Wearing medium tires, driver number 11 was only 81 milliseconds behind Russell’s time with a 1.19.538.

Discreet Ferraris

Despite Carlos Sainz’s mechanical problems, which were resolved quite early in the session, he and his teammate in the Ferrari garage were quite discreet. Having spent most of the session in the middle of the pack with almost no running, the two red cars decided to go out towards the end of this second free practice session.

During the remaining ten minutes, Leclerc held the third position, while Sainz was only sixth. If the Mercedes were surely a bit higher than they should be, this second practice session confirmed, once again, that the battle will be between Red Bull and Ferrari.

Table of FP2: