Several other teams had disrupted sessions – including Aston Martin and Mercedes – while Williams produced a stunning result in front of its home fans.
The start of the session was delayed by five minutes so the track could be swept thoroughly following several offs and crashes occurring in the Formula 2 qualifying session had just concluded, but FP2 ran to its usual one-hour limit.
Nyck de Vries led the pack out of the pits for AlphaTauri, the early running conducted on the C1 hard and C2 medium tyres.
Several drivers had a short stint in the top spot as they registered their opening laps before Sergio Perez established the first-place benchmark at 1m30.014s.
Verstappen then came through to move well ahead on a 1m29.550s, a time that stayed as the quickest for the next phase of the session.
As the opening 10 minutes came to a close, Perez was able to complete the medium running the two Red Bull cars with a quicker 1m29.451s.
But that did not stay as the top time for long, with Sainz also ending his initial laps on the mediums with a flier, a 1m29.083s that put him in front of Perez.
After a short lull in action ahead of the session's middle third, the leaders re-emerged on soft tyres to complete the typical mid-FP2 qualifying simulation efforts.
Verstappen was the first of the frontrunners to head out on softs, which he used to blast to the quickest time in all three sectors and a new best time of 1m28.078s.
Perez followed him through, 0.264s slower, before he was shuffled back to fourth, first by Alex Albon setting a softs flier so good it seemed to surprise Williams team principal James Vowles watching on the pit wall, then by Sainz.
The Spaniard could not move back to the top soft with his first run on softs, but he did register a 1m28.100s that was just 0.022s adrift of Verstappen.
The pack then switched the typical high-fuel running that closes out FP2, during which the only moment of note was a late puncture for de Vries and Stroll reporting being hit by a stone on one of his fingers, which left him "[hurt] pretty bad" but vowing to "keep going", which he did.
De Vries's puncture ended the session, which was a dramatic tyre blowout as he braked for the Village right-hander in the first sector, the Silverstone track's first real braking point, at the conclusion of his high-fuel running.
The Dutchman was able to avoid a major incident and returned to the pits after briefly stopping inside the next turn, The Loop.
Behind Perez in fifth came Logan Sargeant, backing up a strong opening day of track action for Williams.
Sixth was Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, who had his qualifying simulation run interrupted by having to pit so his left-side wing mirror could be worked on, the part having worked loose as the Canadian traversed the Silverstone layout on the softs.
Then came Nico Hulkenberg in seventh, which registered a much better result for Haas compared to his last place in FP1, when the team was checking its front suspension and beam wing upgrades.
Pierre Gasly took eighth for Alpine ahead of Oscar Piastri, while Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10.
Alonso also had his soft tyre lower fuel run interrupted, as Aston order him to quickly slow after he crossed the line following his flying lap as it had detected debris causing "a problem", although it did not report this as a puncture.
The three home heroes – bar London-born, Thai-British driver Albon – ended up outside the top 10, with George Russell ending up in the highest position, 12th for Mercedes.
His team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished 15th behind the other Briton, Lando Norris – with this pair also having a less-than-straightforward end to FP2.
Hamilton aborted his first softs flier, which meant he had to complete his run on slightly worn tyres and he ended up 1.205s adrift of Verstappen, 0.045s slower than Russell, while Norris's McLaren had to undergo considerable front-end work ahead of Norris's soft tyre run.
Leclerc, however, had an FP2 disaster – the Monegasque driver unable to take part in the session.
Ferrari had detected an electrical issue on his car ahead of FP2 and had been working on during the session's early stages, but this did not lead to a fix that meant Leclerc was able to enter the running.
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Max Verstappen |
 |
Red Bull | Red Bull | 27 | 1'28.078 | |
| 2 |
 Carlos Sainz |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 29 | 1'28.100 | 0.022 |
| 3 |
 Alex Albon |
 |
Williams | Mercedes | 30 | 1'28.296 | 0.218 |
| 4 |
 Sergio Perez |
|
Red Bull | Red Bull | 30 | 1'28.342 | 0.264 |
| 5 |
 Logan Sargeant |
 |
Williams | Mercedes | 29 | 1'28.766 | 0.688 |
| 6 |
 Lance Stroll |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 30 | 1'28.866 | 0.788 |
| 7 |
 Nico Hulkenberg |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 28 | 1'28.880 | 0.802 |
| 8 |
 Pierre Gasly |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 27 | 1'28.889 | 0.811 |
| 9 |
 Oscar Piastri |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 29 | 1'28.926 | 0.848 |
| 10 |
Fernando Alonso |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 26 | 1'29.134 | 1.056 |
| 11 |
 Zhou Guanyu |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 28 | 1'29.225 | 1.147 |
| 12 |
 George Russell |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 25 | 1'29.238 | 1.160 |
| 13 |
Esteban Ocon |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 24 | 1'29.242 | 1.164 |
| 14 |
Lando Norris |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 24 | 1'29.260 | 1.182 |
| 15 |
Lewis Hamilton |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 24 | 1'29.283 | 1.205 |
| 16 |
 Valtteri Bottas |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 28 | 1'29.378 | 1.300 |
| 17 |
 Kevin Magnussen |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 20 | 1'29.439 | 1.361 |
| 18 |
 Yuki Tsunoda |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 25 | 1'29.483 | 1.405 |
| 19 |
Nyck de Vries |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 29 | 1'29.571 | 1.493 |
| 20 |
 Charles Leclerc |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 0 | ||
| View full results | |||||||
