Hamilton tops second Bahrain practice after Albon crashes heavily

Lewis Hamilton led the second practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was disrupted by a heavy crash for Alexander Albon.

The Red Bull driver ran wide at the final corner, snapped sideways on the run-off area and spun into the wall. His RB16 took heavy damage, particularly at the right-rear.

Albon immediately confirmed he was okay before being taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks due to the high G-forces of the accident. A red flag was brought out while Albon’s mangled car was retrieved.

Almost immediately after the session restarted the red flags flew again. Although the track had been cleared of debris, a dog had made its way onto the circuit, and cars returned to the pits while it ran back to safety at turn two.

Once the session turned green again, Max Verstappen led the times until the final 15 minutes when Hamilton set his fastest lap. The Mercedes driver lapped almost three and a half tenths faster than Verstappen, setting a 1’28.971 on soft tyres.

All competitors were required to run a minimum of six timed laps on a set of 2021 C3 compounds during second practice, which they opted to do from the start of the session. Multiple drivers reported understeer on the new compound, with lap times a little jumbled by the test runs, including both Mercedes running right at the back of the order.

Bottas, in particular, complained about his steering from the moment he left the pits at the start of the session, saying it was pulling “right down.” He ended up driving slowly for his out lap, before ultimately ending up off the track briefly.

Carlos Sainz Jnr, Verstappen and Charles Leclerc topped the times after the test runs, with Verstappen improving his time to lead the session for almost the entire remaining duration before he was finally pipped by Hamilton.

Racing Point continued their encouraging form from first practice, Sergio Perez setting the fourth-fastest time, edging Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault by less than a tenth of a second.

Daniil Kvyat struggled all session, repeatedly radioing to his engineer for adjustments. AlphaTauri team mate Pierre Gasly was similarly vocal after being held up by other drivers, though he ended the session in sixth place.

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2020 Bahrain Grand Prix second practice result

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’28.971		28
2	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’29.318	0.347	34
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’29.336	0.365	30
4	11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’29.403	0.432	32
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’29.462	0.491	27
6	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’29.551	0.580	36
7	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’29.841	0.870	30
8	18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’29.871	0.900	32
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	AlphaTauri-Honda	1’29.900	0.929	34
10	23	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’30.014	1.043	17
11	31	Esteban Ocon	Renault	1’30.085	1.114	30
12	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’30.110	1.139	35
13	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’30.271	1.300	33
14	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’30.407	1.436	30
15	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’30.627	1.656	33
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’30.849	1.878	27
17	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’30.928	1.957	34
18	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’30.973	2.002	32
19	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’31.119	2.148	28
20	63	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’31.636	2.665	29

Second practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2020 Bahrain Grand Prix

• Pictures: Wrecked chassis from Grosjean’s Bahrain fireball crash to go on display
• Grosjean reveals extent of burns to right hand
• ‘I put both my hands in the fire’: Grosjean describes his 28 seconds trapped in an inferno
• “Thank you for saving my life” Grosjean tells crash scene marshals
• The urgent questions F1 must answer following Grosjean’s fireball crash

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