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F1 Spanish GP: Hamilton fastest in FP2 over Sainz, Norris

Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest time in FP2 ahead of Formula 1's Spanish Grand Prix as the Mercedes driver beat Carlos Sainz by a scant 0.022 seconds.

The seven-time F1 champion vaulted to the top of the order amid the mid-session soft tyre running to displace home favourite Sainz, who had kicked off the running on the C3 tyres - the softest compound for this weekend.

George Russell had led the way after the early runs on medium tyres, having nudged ahead of FP1 headliner Lando Norris' 1m14.197s to claim a 1m14.089s as the benchmark for the later soft-tyre runs.

Sainz then produced the first flying lap on the red-walled tyres among the front-runners, logging a 1m13.286s, which was briefly challenged by Norris, but the McLaren driver only managed to put his car 0.033s behind his ex-team-mate.

Max Verstappen set the best first and third sectors on his first tilt at a qualifying-adjacent tour, but lost 0.3s in the middle sector to Sainz to ultimately fall short of the two cars ahead.

Hamilton then fired his Mercedes to the top, logging a 1m13.264s thanks to a strong final sector, to carry him just two hundredths clear of Sainz's earlier effort.

The attention switched to race runs shortly after, effectively locking in the timing board as the teams and drivers sought to assess their cars in race trim.

Sainz and Norris thus completed the top three, all within a 0.055s bracket of Hamilton's best effort. In the meantime, Verstappen had been sitting in fourth towards the end of the quicker runs - but was gazumped by a surprise effort from Pierre Gasly who found a time good enough to split him from the leading trio.

Charles Leclerc was sixth fastest, but largely sat out the longer runs as Ferrari decided instead to tinker with his SF-24's suspension settings to extract more pace from his machinery.

Oscar Piastri was seventh ahead of Russell, who was under half a second shy of his team-mate's top-line effort having struggled with an apparent lack of stopping power on board his Mercedes.

Esteban Ocon gave Alpine reason to be buoyant as he claimed the ninth fastest time, ensuring both A524s figured in the top half of the timesheets, while Valtteri Bottas completed the top 10 over the two Haas cars.

   
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Cla Driver # Chassis Engine Laps Time Interval km/h
1 United Kingdom L. Hamilton Mercedes 44 Mercedes Mercedes 28

1'13.264

  228.832
2 Spain C. Sainz Ferrari 55 Ferrari Ferrari 30

+0.022

1'13.286

0.022 228.764
3 United Kingdom L. Norris McLaren 4 McLaren Mercedes 31

+0.055

1'13.319

0.033 228.661
4 France P. Gasly Alpine 10 Alpine Renault 27

+0.179

1'13.443

0.124 228.274
5 Netherlands M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing 1 Red Bull Red Bull 29

+0.240

1'13.504

0.061 228.085
6 Monaco C. Leclerc Ferrari 16 Ferrari Ferrari 22

+0.333

1'13.597

0.093 227.797
7 Australia O. Piastri McLaren 81 McLaren Mercedes 28

+0.358

1'13.622

0.025 227.719
8 United Kingdom G. Russell Mercedes 63 Mercedes Mercedes 28

+0.458

1'13.722

0.100 227.411
9 France E. Ocon Alpine 31 Alpine Renault 30

+0.502

1'13.766

0.044 227.275
10 Finland V. Bottas Sauber 77 Sauber Ferrari 30

+0.660

1'13.924

0.158 226.789
11 Denmark K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team 20 Haas Ferrari 32

+0.757

1'14.021

0.097 226.492
12 Germany N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team 27 Haas Ferrari 29

+0.789

1'14.053

0.032 226.394
13 Mexico S. Perez Red Bull Racing 11 Red Bull Red Bull 23

+0.817

1'14.081

0.028 226.309
14 Spain F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing 14 Aston Martin Mercedes 28

+0.827

1'14.091

0.010 226.278
15 Japan Y. Tsunoda RB 22 RB Red Bull 31

+0.947

1'14.211

0.120 225.912
16 Australia D. Ricciardo RB 3 RB Red Bull 29

+0.993

1'14.257

0.046 225.772
17 China Z. Guanyu Sauber 24 Sauber Ferrari 21

+1.081

1'14.345

0.088 225.505
18 Canada L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing 18 Aston Martin Mercedes 28

+1.138

1'14.402

0.057 225.332
19 Thailand A. Albon Williams 23 Williams Mercedes 34

+1.543

1'14.807

0.405 224.112
20 United States L. Sargeant Williams 2 Williams Mercedes 33

+1.806

1'15.070

0.263 223.327
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