Oscar Piastri maintained his grip on the top of the timing screens as the end of the second practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Piastri, for the second session in a row was followed by teammate Lando Norris who was only 0.025s behind him in second place.
But the surprise was Pierre Gasly, who was third fastest in the Alpine, maintaining the form he showed in FP1 and even improving. The Frenchman was almost three tenths of the pace of Piastri though, as his new teammate, Franco Colapinto, was almost half a second behind him and down in 13th despite some slight improvement.
As such McLaren ended Friday with an advantage that was also apparent towards the end of the one-hour session when the teams were on race simulations, but the battle between Piastri and Norris will be interesting as they are so close on pace.
George Russell was the better Mercedes driver one again, fourth fastest and 0.4s off the pace while teammate, Kimi Antonelli struggled again in front of his home crowd and was down in 18th.
Max Verstappen at some point flirted with the top, but in the end the reigning Formula 1 champion was down in fifth, 0.442s down on the best time set by Piastri. He may still have some time since Red Bull are known to run the engine a bit down in practice, but that RB21 does not look hooked up yet.
Red Bull could be in hot waters as Verstappen reported something hitting his foot in the cockpit which turned out to be a nut according to his radio message...
Charles Leclerc was sixth in the Ferrari while Hamilton finished 11th as both drivers struggled with their brakes on those Ferraris.
Isack Hadjar, before crashing towards the end of the session, posted the seventh fastest time. Liam Lawson was 15th in the sister car.
Yuki Tsunoda was eighth fastest in the second Red Bull ahead of the Williams duo, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, ninth and tenth respectively.
Buildup towards FP2
There was no surprise when McLaren's Piastri and Norris were fastest in the first practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
However, the fact that Gasly in the Alpine flirted with the top five, while both Saubers featured in the top ten, was a surprise. Was that just a freakish outcome?
Williams showed they have some pace with both Sainz and Albon, but Ferrari's Leclerc was outside the top ten, with Hamilton mixing it up with the frontrunners despite struggling with his brakes.
But the one driver that seemed out of sorts was Verstappen in his upgraded RB21, as he did not put in as many laps as his rivals while he was complaining about rear-end grip. He was eventually over three-tenths off the pace.
Colapinto in the Alpine was way off Gasly, but let's give him some time to truly find out how he stacks up against the Frenchman. With a five-race casting opportunity, Colapinto has enough pressure to deal with.
As for Aston Martin, they gave their huge upgrade package to Lance Stroll and not Fernando Alonso in FP1, and while the Canadian was 11th, Alonso was 14th, which is not a huge gap if you think of it. Let's see how they perform in FP2.
Pirelli debuted their softest compound in their lineup, the C6, and there are already questions about the durability of that tyre.
Also noteworthy were the various wide moments several drivers suffered dipping their tyres into the gravel. Only Bortoleto was unlucky enough to end in the barriers though.
FP2 Session Highlights
Clear conditions continued for the second hour of practice at Imola as track temperature dropped by a couple of degrees to 38 degrees Celsius while the air temperature rose a couple tp 20 degrees.
Oliver Bearman, Esteban Ocon, Colapinto, Gasly, and Hadjar led the way out on track as both Ferraris and Verstappen soon followed suit.
Most of the drivers were out on the Mediums at the start except for Alonso and Hamilton who opted for the Softs.
Alonso soon radioed: " I nearly crashed." And the reason? He had slow Colapinto on the racing line and had to back off taking avoiding action and just making it without contact.
Hamilton also was blocked by a Sauber and Red Bull soo after. The Briton had a couple of shaky moments at Variante Alta earlier.
Closer to half time, the Soft compounds started emerging as the timing screens were reshuffled with several names taking turn on the top spot.
Meanwhile, Hamilton is yet to be satisfied with his brakes, he radioed: "These damn brakes mate, these brakes are a problem."
Verstappen reported issues with the rear of his car as well as bottoming out at Turns 11 and 12.
Leclerc soon reported similar issues to Hamilton, he said over the radio: "The brakes in mode warm up are horrendous; like it's not braking."
The Monegasque then had a snap in Tamburello and then went out of shape at Variante Alta.
In the final 20 minutes, the long runs started with Medium tyres and high fuel loads. Ferrari in the meantime checked Hamilton's brakes before sending him out.
Antonelli then had a close call with Tsunoda in the first Rivazza, but not contract. "That was super dangerous from the Red Bull," the rookie exclaimed.
Leclerc identified parts of the track where his engineers need to focus on sorting the car, he told the pitwall: "We need to work on the entry of Turns 5, 9, and 11 - it's critical I think.
Verstappen then radioed: "Something keeps touching my foot under braking in Turn 2."
The Dutchman has a race with Colapinto wondering over the team radio: " What's this guy doing man, using his DRS?"
Russell then had a mini fight with the Argentine who is taking these racing simulations a tad too seriously also having a fight with Norris.
With seven minutes remaining, Hadjar spun in Turn 3 and went through the gravel and hit the barriers. He managed to drive back to the edge of the track and got stuck on a grass patch.
An initial Yellow flag became Red.
The session was restarted with two minutes remaining on the clock, the drivers making their way out on track to perform some practice starts.
Emilia Romagna GP FP2 Classification
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