Vettel edges Verstappen in FP2 as Mercedes retreats

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel took command in Friday afternoon's FP2 session, the German driver impressing in both his qualifying and race simulations.

Vettel concluded the day with a 0.115s advantage over red Bull's Max Verstappen, while Scuderia teammate Charles Leclerc was 0465s adrift from the day's pace setter.

Mercedes retreated relative to its FP1 performance, with Valtteri Bottas clocking in fourth, 0.614s behind Vettel while Lewis Hamilton was fifth, although the reigning world champion's race sim pace on the medium tyre appeared to put Mercedes closer to its Italian rival.

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Drivers resumed their day's work on a dry track but still overcast skies. Alfa Romeo's chargers kicked off FP2 proceedings, but it was McLaren's Lando Norris who put the first timed lap on the board.

Vettel, Leclerc and Verstappen - running on medium tyres - were all quick to spring into action and the German lost no time putting himself at the top of the timing screens with a 1m18.697s.

Leclerc and Vettel traded places at the top but the Monegasque pitched himself into a spin on the entry into Turn 1, inflicting damage only to his tyres.

The same could not be said of Alex Albon however, the Red Bull driver crashing into the wall on the exit of Turn 7 after riding the kerb at excessive speed on the entry and swapping ends thereafter.

The British-Thai racer looked predictably dejected as he walked away from his severely damaged RB15, his day of running ending prematurely. The subsequent lack of track time at a venue he is visiting for the first time only adding to Albon's frustrations.

The session was temporarily red flagged to allow the marshals to clean up the area, but when the lights went green, Verstappen took the opportunity to exactly match Vettel's best time.

Hamilton also finally sprung into action, clocking in P4 on his first run, just behind Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly whose solid run put him third.

Bottas was seen spinning in the stadium section, without any consequence, as he attempted to improve on his P7 position.

Forty minutes into the session, as qualifying simulations kicked off, Leclerc fired in a 1m17.072s on the soft tyre that placed him second behind Vettel who - also on softs - had dipped in the interim into the 1m16s.

Verstappen on a fresh set of softs then split the Scuderia chargers, getting within 0.115s of Vettel.

The trend among the front-runners was for their second lap to be slower than the first, suggesting that the performance of their soft compounds was falling off.

A productive effort from Daniil Kvyat allowed the Russian to overhaul Gasly and become the top midfield runner in sixth place, the Toro Rosso pair leading McLaren's Carlos Sainz, Renault's Nico Hulkenberg and Lando Norris.

It's risky reading anything into Friday practice but so far Toro Rosso looked like it might be giving McLaren a run for its money this weekend.

Drivers reverted to race runs in the final 30 minutes of the session, freezing the order among the top ten.

While Hamilton's single lap pace was relatively subdued, the reigning world champion's long runs on the medium rubber were swift and consistent, and that's exactly what will be recommended on race day.

However, a glance at Vettel and Leclerc's times revealed that the Ferrari drivers' race simulation paces on the medium tyre were equally impressive!

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