Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso beat the Red Bulls duo to the fastest time in second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix as the hype surrounding Aston Martin’s 2023 Formula 1 car once again became the talking point.
Aston Martin had their two cars in the top six as well once again after Lance Stroll finished sixth in his second session back in the car, having missed pre-season testing through injury.
Remember, stroll who was 1.1s off his team-mate in FP1
Red bull’s Verstappen ended up beating his team-mate Perez to second place by a 0.002s margin – but Red Bull’s pace on long-run simulations still makes them the team to beat.
Charles Leclerc ended the session fourth.
His team-mate Carlos Sainz, who had a bad race in FP1, had issues for a second session in a row as he only had one attempt at a qualifying simulation which resulted in him finishing 14th.
Nico Hulkenberg finished fifth in Haas’s VF-23, while behind Stroll in 6th the Alpine’s new recruit Pierre Gasly finishing seventh.
Lewis Hamilton was eighth in the colors the Mercedes, with team-mate George Russell three tenths further back in 13th and complaining of “aerodynamic disturbance” to the W14 at the end of the session.
Lando Norris finished again in the top 10 for McLaren, placing ninth after avoiding a clash with the AlphaTauri of Nyck de Vries in the pitlane earlier in the session, with Alga Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu completing the top half of the order in his C43 car.
The other half of the log saw Esteban Ocon of Alpine in 11th while the 12th place was occupied by Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo. George Russell ofMercedes finished 13th. Carlos Sainz Jr of Ferrari was placed 14th. The 15th spot went to Oscar Piastri of McLaren. Kevin Magnussen in Haas’ car finished 16th. Alex Albon finished 17th for Williams. The 18th spot was occupied by Yuki Tsunoda of AlphaTauri, while William’s Logan Sargeant finished 19th leaving Nyck de Vries of AlphaTauri in the 20th position.
