The Spaniard set the fastest lap of FP2 just before the Albert Park Circuit began to rain, outpacing Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by 0.445 seconds with a time of 1m 18.887s.
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Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin continued to draw attention with their performance on the opening day of competition in Melbourne, as the Spaniard set the fastest times in a second practise session for the Australian Grand Prix that was hampered by rain. Alonso had set the fourth-fastest time in the first practise session, trailing Max Verstappen by 0.527 seconds. However, the Spaniard set the fastest lap of FP2 just before the Albert Park Circuit began to rain, outpacing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 0.445 seconds with a time of 1m 18.887s.
“It was good. I think in FP1, we concentrated on some test items that we wanted to tick the box [on] and then in FP2… it was just a 20-minute [dry] session only. So, still some jobs to do tomorrow, especially on the tyres into the race, on long runs that we were obviously missing today. But so far, I think the car seems to behave well, so let’s see tomorrow.”
“I think the forecast is dry, so I think ideally we will prefer dry conditions because we’ve only driven this car in dry conditions in Jeddah and in Bahrain,” the Spaniard added. “A dry race will be welcome from our side, but I think we should be ready for all conditions.”
Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin set the fastest time in FP2 before rain began to fall over Albert Park, with Charles Leclerc of Ferrari coming in second and Max Verstappen of Red Bull coming in third. Verstappen set the pace in Melbourne’s opening practise for the 2023 Australian Grand Prix ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez. But before Logan Sargeant’s Williams stopped and brought out the second stoppage of that hour, the opening session was also stopped by a red flag raised by a lack of GPS.
After 20 minutes of FP2, Alonso had the fastest lap with a time of 1 minute, 18.887 seconds. Verstappen was in third place, 0.615 seconds behind Alonso, and Leclerc was in second place, 0.445 seconds behind him. Every driver was in the pits due to the rain, so Carlos Sainz (P5) and Leclerc broke the silence with some sighting runs on soft tyres. However, they both agreed that the track was too wet for slick running. Esteban Ocon (P6) and Hamilton (P13) of Alpine emerged on intermediate tyres shortly after the Ferraris braved the track on soft tyres in the rain, and the rest of the field quickly followed. Drivers enjoyed their first runs in the 2023 cars in the wet conditions, and the track was bustling with activity even though the field duly remained unchanged.
Although there were no representative qualifying simulation runs in FP2, Mercedes’ George Russell finished P4, 0.785 seconds off the lead, and Sainz was in P5 with 0.808 seconds separating him from first place. While Perez took P7 in the other Red Bull as the first driver more than a second off the fastest time, Esteban Ocon finished sixth just 0.030s off the Ferrari.
