Red Bull’s Max Verstappen led the times in the second practice session for the 2021 British Formula 1 Grand Prix, where the teams focused on long-term data collection with high fuel levels.
The lack of performance with low fuel consumption resulted in a messed up order compared to the Q1 / Q2 / Q3 qualifying on Friday evening. Lewis Hamilton – who led the session that set the grid for the Saturday before Verstappen’s spring qualifying race – finished eighth for Mercedes.
The second hour-long practice session took place at Silverstone in hot and sunny conditions, although the drivers were unable to work on the setups compared to Friday’s FP1 as their cars were included in the arrangements the teams had selected prior to Friday’s qualifying, because they stayed in the race parc ferme conditions.
Mick Schumacher led the Haas field at the beginning of the session and took first place with 1: 34.017 minutes on the medium-sized tires.
Esteban Ocon then drove ahead quickly with 1: 32.220s on the softs, with the Alpine driver reducing the fastest time to 1: 31.878s in the first 15 minutes.
The times were several seconds slower than Hamilton’s fastest time in Friday qualifying, which does not count as an official pole position as the teams sent their drivers on long runs with lots of fuel to prepare for sprint qualifying and the grand prix races Collect data.
Sergio Perez replaced Ocon at the top of the timesheet with a 1: 31.382 as the first 15 minutes came to an end, just as Verstappen went on his head for the first time.
He hit the medium tires and shot straight to the top of the times in 1: 30.428 minutes before completing a long run of over 15 minutes.
At the end of this stint on the medium, Verstappen set two personal bests, which reduced the fastest time to 1: 29.902 minutes, which was considered the best lap until the end of the session.
Verstappen pitted shortly after his best time on the media and stayed in the garage for another 10 minutes before showing up again for a late stint on the Hards.
The Ferrari drivers jumped into the order just over 20 minutes before the end, Charles Leclerc, who at some point slipped into the run-off zone behind Brooklands, led Carlos Sainz when they drove the medium or soft tires during this phase of the session.
Ocon was fourth ahead of Perez, the McLaren duo Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were sixth and seventh.
Norris lost a couple of times in the second half of the session after running far in separate moments at Stowe and Copse.
Hamilton’s best time in FP2 – bet on the softs – was 1.229 seconds slower than Verstappen’s peak performance in the session, with World Champion Mercedes at one point asking if it was advisable to keep adding kilometers to his engine and the team replied that it was ” satisfied with the PU in this engine mode “.
Valtteri Bottas crossed the finish line just behind his teammate, with the most prominent part of his session approaching halftime in terms of possible damage Mercedes had detected to his left rear deflector.
Bottas insisted that he hadn’t run too hard over the curbs, and the team later suspected that this was where a tear-off visor had caught in the rear of his car, and when the Finn pitted the next time , Mercedes inspected his car and one of its crack-offs was actually removed from its W12.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly completed the top 10 ahead of Friday qualifier George Russell, who finished 11th for Williams – and noted in the early stages that the wind felt stronger compared to the previous day’s conditions.
After the checkered flag had fallen and the drivers had completed the training starts on the grid, Bottas turned his car in Village after clattering back into the pits in the tight right-hand bend on his lap.
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