Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest during Spanish Grand Prix practice in Barcelona on Friday, the sixth round of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship.
Leclerc was quickest in both FP1 and FP2, ahead of Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen across the two one-hour sessions.
Spanish Grand Prix FP1 results: Leclerc fastest from Sainz
What happened in Spanish GP Free Practice 1?
After early running on the hard tires, Sainz set the bar on softs at 1m19.907s. That looked set to be topped by Verstappen, who set the fastest first two sectors when he came across a huge amount of traffic towards the end of the lap.
Verstappen still managed 1m20.164s to go second to Sainz but then Leclerc beat them both with a session topping 1m19.828s effort to make it a Ferrari 1-2.
Russell was best of the rest for Mercedes, lapping 0.762s off the pace on 1m20.590s. He later had a big moment when he came across the second Red Bull, driven for the first time in FP1 by F2 racer Juri Vips.
Fernando Alonso made it two local heroes in the top five, lapping his Alpine in 1m20.768s, just ahead of the second Mercedes of Hamilton – who almost had to go off track when he caught Alonso before the final corner sequence.
Both Alonso and Vips were later handed reprimands by the FIA stewards.
McLaren and AlphaTauri shared the rest of the top 10 spots, with Lando Norris ahead of Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
Robert Kubica also got an outing for Alfa Romeo, setting the 13th-fastest time, with Nyck de Vries making his Williams debut and just outpacing Nicholas Latifi to the 18th.
Spanish Grand Prix FP2 results: Leclerc fastest from Russell
What happened in Spanish GP Free Practice 2?
Teams ran medium tires at the beginning of this session, with Verstappen leading the way on 1m20.932s, 0.046s ahead of Sainz and 0.063s quicker than Leclerc – the latter suffering a scruffy end to his lap.
Sebastian Vettel was the first to set a time on softs in his updated Aston Martin, which has been the talk of the paddock today, setting the bar at 1m20.703s. That was soon beaten by Verstappen on 1m20.006s.
Sainz pipped Verstappen’s time by 0.016s on 1m19.990s, before Leclerc convincingly beat them both with 1m19.670s.
Russell then got to within 0.117s of Leclerc’s fastest time on 1m19.787s, with Hamilton two tenths off the pace in third.
Alonso was sixth in this session, ahead of Sergio Perez (back in the second Red Bull), Vettel, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Mick Schumacher (Haas).
Sainz and Alex Albon (Williams) had a spat after Turn 1, which stewards will investigate after the session. Lando Norris and Albon both had big moments and ran wide at Turn 9.
Valtteri Bottas was an early casualty when “something broke” on his Alfa Romeo, forcing him to stop at Turn 1.
