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Saudi Arabia FP2: Verstappen stays top, Alonso edges Perez

Red Bull's Max Verstappen retained control of proceedings in Saudi Arabia, setting the fastest time of 1:29.603s in Friday's night time conditions at Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

That was two tenths quicker than Fernando Alonso, who confirmed that the Aston Martin pace seen in Bahrain was no desert mirage and had translated quite satisfactorily to this week's very different track conditions.

Sergio Perez was third quickest ahead of Alpine's Esteban Ocon, with George Russell fifth fastest for Mercedes ahead of Pierre Gasly. Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz ended up on the outer edge of the top ten.

2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix - Free Practice 2 results

The sun had set over Jeddah, and the floodlights were cutting through the darkness of the desert night as the cars headed out on track for the second practice session of the Saudi Arabia GP weekend. Conditions were certainly very different from the daytime FP1 session, which had seen Max Verstappen and Sergio had comfortably top the times for Red Bull.

Aston Martin's Lance Stroll was heading the way out of pit lane, followed by Williams' Logan Sargeant, but they were soon joined by a flurry of other cars with everyone eager to get to work on a mixture of hard and medium tyres. Sergio Perez was last to emerge from the garage but he was soon up to speed.

Stroll set the first flying lap but was quickly knocked off the top by Ferrari's Carlos Sainz setting a time of 1:31.080s, after the Scuderia opted to make precautionary power unit changes on both of their cars. Charles Leclerc joined his team mate in second position with Fernando Alonso third ahead of Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg.

Stroll's second lap put him ahead of the Ferraris. Verstappen then briefly went quicker, before Alonso's second flier on mediums put the Aston top with a new benchmark of 1:30.612s. Perez then finally put in a proper push lap to go ahead by 0.184s, while Leclerc's latest was only enough to tuck him into fourth place.

Verstappen was flying again, and his next lap saw him effortlessly back on top with a time of 1:30.058s. By contrast, Lewis Hamilton's latest effort was only good enough for ninth place with the Mercedes clocking in almost a full second behind Verstappen.

Alpine was looking in much better shape this time compared with Bahrain, with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon slotting in behind Alonso in fourth and fifth place ahead of Williams Alex Albon. That pushed Leclerc down to seventh ahead of Stroll, Hamilton and Sainz as Verstappen pushed the goal posts even further with his latest offering of 1:29.952s.

There had been a few lock-ups and run-ons (including Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas), and a few drivers including Verstappen and AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda strayed close to brushing the wall, but no one had come to any real harm in the opening quarter of an hour. Alonso's first outing on soft tyres saw a lairy moment in turn 22 which did his tyres no good, and his second push lap was baulked by Sainz which left him heading to pit lane prematurely.

Perez' first qualifying tour on the C4s was swift enough to see him edge half a tenth ahead of his team mate Verstappen at the top of the timings. George Russell was similarly able to push into the top ten on his first time on the softs, but it was still slower than the Alpines had managed on the medium compound - even before the Mercedes found himself being shuffled backwards.

Verstappen was also back in action and back on top with a time of 1:29.603s, three tenths quicker now than Perez; Alonso remained third quickest ahead of Haas' Nico Hulkenberg, with Gasly still fourth ahead of the latest run from Leclerc which had put him ahead of Ocon and Sainz, with Hamilton back in ninth followed by Stroll, Norris, Russell, Albon and Kevin Magnussen in 14th.

Alonso and Stroll were soon back in action, and at the halfway point the top four had become a Red Bull/Aston/Red Bull/Aston formation, before Russell broke the pleasing symmetry by going fourth ahead of Stroll. There were also better runs from Ocon (putting him ahead of Russell) and Gasly (nudging ahead of Stroll) by the time the qualifying runs came to an end and the drivers settled back for some longer distance tyre degradation laps for the remainder of the evening.

Behind Hulkenberg, it had been a subdued session for Ferrari with Leclerc and Sainz ninth and tenth respectively ahead of Hamilton, and Lando Norris the leading McLaren in 12th place just ahead of Tsunoda, Albon and Magnussen. All three rookies (Nyck de Vries, Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri) finished in the bottom five together with the two Alfa Romeo drivers Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas who was P20.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.