Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Thursday's second practice session in Bahrain, with his Mercedes team mate George Russell second quickest ahead of Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
It was a strangely subdued session for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen only sixth half a second off Hamilton's best lap, and Sergio Perez down in tenth by the time the chequered flag came out.
However that was in part due to teams deciding to follow an initial flurry of qualifying laps on soft tyres with long distance simulation laps for the second half, Red Bull still looking ahead of their rivals in race trim.
The first practice of the 2024 season had been held in the full heat of daylight, on a dusty track assailed by strong gusts of wind, and as such had been somewhat unrepresentative of the conditions that the drivers would face in qualifying tomorrow and in Saturday's race. Only two teams (RB and McLaren) had even tried out the soft compound tyres, so it was little surprise that Daniel Ricciardo had topped those times, closely followed by Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
By the time the lights at the end of pit lane went green to get FP2 underway, dusk had settled in over Bahrain International Circuit. The floodlights were on and the temperatures significantly lower, although the wind remained an issue. As things got underway, Sauber's Valtteri Bottas appeared to jump the light at the end of pit lane as he carried out a practice start from pit lane. Meanwhile his team mate Zhou Guanyu and Haas' Nico Hulkenberg were first to hit the track followed by McLaren pair Norris and Piastri and by Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.
Sergio Perez was also quick to break cover, straight on to the softs for a qualifying run and setting an early time of 1:31.629s which was a tenth quicker than Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. Charles Leclerc in the second Ferrari quickly went faster, and then it was Leclerc's 2025 team mate Lewis Hamilton who set a new target time of 1:30.751s. Fernando Alonso wasn't able to match that as he moved into second place in the Aston Martin, 0.284s slower than the Mercedes.
Defending champion Max Verstappen had initially held back but now put in a flying lap that saw him up to fourth ahead of the latest efforts from Perez and Sainz. His next flier saw him move up one spot to P2 ahead of Leclerc, who had carried too much speed into the final corner with his follow-up run and got all out of shape. Meanwhile George Russell - currently P10 behind the two Williams of Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant - was stuck back in the garage with the engineers checking out the underside of his Mercedes after reports of flames being visible coming from beneath the W15.
Verstappen continued to run on his original set of softs, his main complaint apparently being that he had "too much air coming into my eyes". Sainz meanwhile had put on a second set of the soft tyres and immediately moved up to P2, 0.018s behind Hamilton who then pushed on to set a new top time of 1:30.374s. Piastri was up to third and Hulkenberg a promising fourth after Haas also moved to the soft compound after an initial spell on the mediums.
Even on his second fresh set of softs, Verstappen remained almost half a second off Hamilton's target time and was only fourth fastest with his next run putting him just ahead of Hulkenberg. By now, Russell was also back in business and immediately went second, just two tenths off his team mate's time and comfortably ahead of an improved lap by Alonso.
After the halfway mark, the teams were focused on race simulations - but unusually they were doing so on their existing set of softs, which are expected to be a popular choice on Sunday. It meant that the existing times already on the timesheets didn't change further, with Hamilton and Russell remaining on top ahead of Alonso, Sainz and Piastri, and Verstappen only sixth. Whether this was a concern for Red Bull at this early stage or whether they are still keeping their full capability a secret remains to be seen; their long run pace still seems slightly ahead of their rivals.
After their dismal lap times in testing and earlier in FP1, Haas will be happy to see Hulkenberg up to seventh ahead of Stroll, Leclerc and Perez. Albon was also looking satisfied with P11 putting him ahead of afternoon pace setter Ricciardo, with Sargeant a solid 13th ahead of Magnussen, Tsunoda, Gasly, Bottas, Ocon and Zhou. Having run soft tyres in first practice, Norris ended up slowest of anyone with a final stint on the mediums by the time the chequered flag came out to end the session.
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