Lewis Hamilton edged out Carlos Sainz to top the timesheets during second practice at Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix and maintain Mercedes’ growing momentum.
The Briton, who has been unable to translate promising practice pace into genuine results in recent rounds, posted a 1:13.264s in the opening stages to head the grid.
Just like the opening practice hour, the second session in the weekend took place under glistening sunshine as those teams with updates strived to gather more data.
Sainz propelled his Ferrari right to the top on home soil during the opening runs on the Soft tyre, with team-mate Charles Leclerc three-tenths adrift in the sister SF-24.
However, Hamilton clocked a lap moments later that went 0.033s quicker than Sainz to displace the Spaniard and that transpired to end up as the fastest overall time.
Sainz remained the lead Ferrari in second as Leclerc dropped to sixth, while Lando Norris backed up his table-topping time in FP1 to be third, 0.055s behind Hamilton.
Behind the McLaren came Pierre Gasly in a surprise fourth for the ever-improving Alpine squad, with team-mate Esteban Ocon also inside the top 10 in ninth position.
Max Verstappen cooled expectations going into the weekend that Red Bull will dominate in Barcelona and he ended FP2 in fifth, 0.240s down on the benchmark time.
Oscar Piastri was matching McLaren team-mate Norris until the final sector and he wound up seventh, with George Russell situated 0.458s behind Hamilton in eighth.
Sauber is the sole remaining team still waiting to land its maiden point this season, but Valtteri Bottas provided minor encouragement as he was 10th quickest in FP2.
The two Haas cars were less than eight-tenths back from Hamilton’s leading effort, but both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg resided outside the top 10 places.
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez’s attempts to rebound from a challenging run appeared to encounter another setback as his time – posted later than his rivals – ended in 13th.
Aston Martin’s pace was unspectacular as home favourite Fernando Alonso was down in 14th place on the order, while team-mate Lance Stroll was four places back.
That provided a similar tale down at RB as Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo were line astern in 15th and 16th places respectively, with Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber 17th.
Williams expected an uninspiring event heading into the on-track action and Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant ended proceedings with the slowest times on the board.
