2023 Spanish Grand Prix FP2 Report & Highlight: Verstappen beats Alonso during second Barcelona practice session

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen made Friday’s practice clean by topping the timesheets during the second practice at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but he had rival Aston Martin and home favorite Fernando Alonso for close companions.

Across another warm and largely dry one-hour session, which saw the field gather more data on Pirelli’s prototype tires along with hard, medium and soft compounds, Verstappen made his way to a 1m 13.907sec lap, another new fastest lap to chart. Last revised use in 2006.

FP1: Verstappen comfortably leads Perez and Ocon during the first practice session in Barcelona

However, having gone three-quarters of a second faster than anyone else in FP1, Verstappen’s advantage on the field in FP2 has been significantly reduced, with Alonso just 0.170 seconds back as he looks to give Spanish fans something to cheer about this weekend.

Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon pumped in impressive laps for Haas and Alpine to finish third and fifth respectively, lapping the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez, who lacked just over three-tenths compared to Verstappen.

Ferrari continued to evaluate the Barcelona upgrade package, consisting of a revised hood, side skirts and floor, with Charles Leclerc getting his first taste of the new parts on his way to sixth, ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz, who ran it in first practice.

George Russell was the quickest of the Mercedes drivers in eighth, 10-and-a-half places behind Lewis Hamilton, as the pair continue to grapple with the major updates the team unleashed in Monaco last time out.

Read more: Wasser explains Ferrari’s side change and how it will open some doors for future development

Russell had to go through a run-off when he approached a slow-moving McLaren of Oscar Piastri into the turn 10 braking area, but returned to the track to continue his program and collect valuable data for the coming weekend.

Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly rounded out the top ten, followed by the aforementioned Hamilton and Piastri, and the other C43, MCL60 and VF-23 machines of Zhou Guanyu, Lando Norris and Kevin Magnussen.

AlphaTauri finished the day in 16th and 17th with Nyck de Vries and Yuki Tsunoda respectively, while Lance Stroll had a quiet session on his way to an 18th-place finish, around a second behind team-mate Alonso and just ahead of the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant. .

As clouds gathered as the session developed, some raindrops fell on the track during the closing stages, but not enough to send the drivers back to the pits to replace their slick tires with intermediate rubber.

WEEKEND WARM-UP: Verstappen on fire, Alonso on home soil and upgrades abound as F1 heads to Spain

Teams and drivers will study the data they collected overnight before returning to the track for a final practice session at 1230 hours local time on Saturday, with the qualifying hour to follow at 1600 hours.