VIDEO: Red flags, crash in second practice! Frenchman Gasly crashes his formula like this

After an early morning opening practice session, Practice 2 was on the agenda for the race weekend in Suzuka, Japan. Max Verstappen was again the winner, with the other three positions shared by Ferrari and McLaren drivers Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. The second practice session was ended prematurely by Pierre Gasly.

Similar to the opening practice session, which was already scheduled for 04:30, practice 2 (FP2) was designed for testing and preparing the monoblocs for qualifying and, most importantly, the Japanese Grand Prix itself.

FP2 was dominated, like the first practice session, by Max Verstappen, who set a time of 1:30.688. He was followed by Charles Leclerc, who lost three tenths of a second. Almost five tenths behind the first Verstappen was Lando Norris.

Fourth place went to Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz, winner of the last Singapore Grand Prix. Fifth place went to George Russell.

However, as the opening two practice sessions have shown so far, Mercedes is struggling on this track and even according to initial predictions, its drivers shouldn’t hit the podium. Fernando Alonso finished sixth, but Aston Martin is already a few races down developmentally.

The final seventh place in FP2 went to Alex Albon, with Oscar Piastri eighth. However, Sergio Pérez’s ninth place is alarming, having switched from a test set of Pirelli tyres to a soft compound during the second practice session. Even so, he lost more than a second to Verstappen on the same car.

Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top ten. His Alfa Romeo teammate Zhou Guangyu had hydraulic problems, so the team has to address technical issues early on this race weekend.

Pierre Gasly’s crash

Lewis Hamilton had miserable finishes in both practice sessions, this time finishing 14th. Compared to the opening practice, the second practice already brought some drama, with Pierre Gasly crashing his Alpine.

The French driver locked up his tyres before a corner, sending him off the track. It should be noted, however, that his car simply wouldn’t turn into the corner and the Alpine would have to deal with understeer issues.

The race directors thus resorted to red flags, bringing the second practice session to a virtually premature end. The next one is scheduled for Saturday and again in the early hours of the morning – 04:30.

Source: F1