Charles Leclerc kept Ferrari on top of the times in the second Friday practice session.
He was almost two tenths quicker than Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, while championship leader Max Verstappen continued to struggled and finished the session down in seventh place.Leclerc has also been summoned to the stewards after the session following an incident with Sergio Perez at the Villeneuve and Tosa corners. Perez got in the Ferrari driver’s way and Leclerc made a forceful pass on the Red Bull in retaliation. The stewards confirmed Perez is under investigation for impeding the Ferrari driver.
The second practice session of the day took place in near-identical conditions to the first, with bright sunshine and warm temperatures of 24C.
After many drivers struggled for grip in the opening practice hour, Pierre Gasly proved early what a challenge the circuit still was by spinning lightly at the Variante Alta chicane. Fernando Alonso expressed his frustration with Lewis Hamilton who twice got in his way in the space of two push lap attempts.
After Alexander Albon suffered a sudden shut-down on his Williams in the first practice session, he and team mate Logan Sargeant began the second session out of their cars as the team conducted heavy maintenance on both FW46s. However, Williams stated that there were no concerns with either of their cars and both Albon and Sargeant took to the track before the half-hour mark.
As he did in the opening session, Leclerc went quickest of all on the soft tyres early on with a 1’15.969, almost half a second quicker than team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr. Verstappen complained of his tyres overheating during his push lap on fresh softs, then like Alonso found the slow Mercedes of Hamilton i his way at the Villeneuve chicane on his next attempt.
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In the final 20 minutes of the session, focus turned to high fuel runs on the medium or hard compounds. Leclerc caught up to Perez’s Red Bull during his run and felt that he was being held up by him. As they entered the left hander of Tosa, Leclerc lunged to the inside and passed Perez cleanly, but forced the Red Bull to miss the apex. The stewards announced they would investigate both after the race over possible impeding.
At the chequered flag, Leclerc was secured at the top of the times for the second successive session. Piastri was second for McLaren with Yuki Tsunoda third for RB ahead of the two Mercedes of Hamilton and George Russell. Sainz was sixth in the second Ferrari, ahead of the two Red Bull drivers, Verstappen and Perez. Nico Hulkenberg and Alonso rounded out the top ten positions.
Tsunoda will also be investigated after practice for allegedly failing to follow the race directors’ instructions in regards to practice starts at the end of the pit lane.
2024 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix second practice result
| P. | # | Driver | Team | Model | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | SF-24 | 1’15.906 | |
| 2 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren-Mercedes | MCL38 | 1’16.098 | 0.192 |
| 3 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB-Honda RBPT | 01 | 1’16.286 | 0.380 |
| 4 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | W15 | 1’16.297 | 0.391 |
| 5 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | W15 | 1’16.311 | 0.405 |
| 6 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ferrari | SF-24 | 1’16.423 | 0.517 |
| 7 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-Honda RBPT | RB20 | 1’16.447 | 0.541 |
| 8 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull-Honda RBPT | RB20 | 1’16.552 | 0.646 |
| 9 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas-Ferrari | VF-24 | 1’16.826 | 0.920 |
| 10 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin-Mercedes | AMR24 | 1’16.838 | 0.932 |
| 11 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB-Honda RBPT | 01 | 1’16.967 | 1.061 |
| 12 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Mercedes | MCL38 | 1’16.980 | 1.074 |
| 13 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin-Mercedes | AMR24 | 1’16.991 | 1.085 |
| 14 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine-Renault | A524 | 1’17.008 | 1.102 |
| 15 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine-Renault | A524 | 1’17.064 | 1.158 |
| 16 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber-Ferrari | C44 | 1’17.088 | 1.182 |
| 17 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | VF-24 | 1’17.129 | 1.223 |
| 18 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams-Mercedes | FW46 | 1’17.135 | 1.229 |
| 19 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Sauber-Ferrari | C44 | 1’17.606 | 1.700 |
| 20 | 2 | Logan Sargeant | Williams-Mercedes | FW46 | 1’17.848 | 1.942 |
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2024 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix
- Ferrari expect qualifying gain after spotting rivals’ power strategy tactics
- How Alonso and Stroll copied Verstappen’s tactic plus more unheard Imola radio
- Verstappen beats Hamilton’s winning rate with Emilia-Romagna GP victory
- How Russell resisted losing position to Hamilton “for no reason” with extra stop
- “Lando’s found some pace”: Unheard radio from Verstappen-Norris Imola duel
Tristan
17th May 2024, 17:33
Was anyone paying enough attention to see what time Norris would have clocked on his abandoned hot lap with the 2 purple sectors? Or whether they were faster than Piastri?
So far so good, but it’s only Friday and Red Bull are overnight setup wizards.
Mark Zastrow (@markzastrow)
17th May 2024, 18:38
I am warming to this year’s sprint format for exactly that reason — it’s possible that Red Bull will be back atop the timesheets tomorrow, but if we had had a sprint qualifying session this afternoon, we would at least see them out of position in a sprint tomorrow. So in that sense, the new format allows for the form book to shift over the weekend. It forces teams to expose their true pace on every day, but they still have the opportunity to carry what they’ve learnt into the grand prix portion of the weekend, more or less as they normally would have done.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th May 2024, 19:37
Yeah, that lap was quite a bit faster than what Piastri did, if I’m not mistaken.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
18th May 2024, 0:00
With his best sectors combined he’d been 0.087 down on Leclerc. But his best final sector was from an earlier run of course and still on medium tires.
Hendy (@hendy)
17th May 2024, 17:49
Could we please get the amount of laps run and which compounds? The time sheets are kinda useless as is and I’d hate to start going elsewhere for my news. Adding which session into the title would really help us navigate, too.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th May 2024, 18:34
@hendy Apparently official live timing hasn’t been particularly reliable today. That ask might be easier to implement somewhere that it’s reliable.
Tristan
18th May 2024, 7:48
It’s always asked for but I don’t know why.
You really need all the lap data to do any sort of practice analysis. Knowing what compound and how many laps doesn’t really tell much more than just the fastest lap times.
Erkr
18th May 2024, 7:14
Yuki absolutely slaying