Charles Leclerc fastest in Saudi Arabia despite session-ending wall 'kiss'

Leclerc in Saudi Arabia — Photo: © LAT Images

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Leclerc fastest in Saudi Arabia despite session-ending wall 'kiss'

Leclerc brushed the wall with just over 20 minutes remaining in FP2

Sam Hall

Friday 25 March 2022 19:23 Updated: 19:32

Charles Leclerc topped second practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite ending his session early following a brush with the walls.

A time of one minute 30.074secs from Leclerc was enough for the Bahrain Grand Prix winner to continue his clean sweep of practice session this weekend even after contact forced him to end his evening early.

Unable to complete a soft tyre run, Verstappen was second fastest, just 0.140s on the medium tyre.

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Similarly to in Bahrain, practice two is the only session that takes place in representative conditions in the cooler temperatures of the night.

Drivers focused on medium tyre runs in the early stages of the hour-long session with Leclerc topping the timesheets by 0.02 seconds from Verstappen.

But after fitting soft tyres, within moments of each other, Sainz clipped his rear-right on the outside wall at turn 13 before Leclerc made considerable contact with his front-left at turn four.

The contact brought Ferrari's session to an end with the team confirming: "Following both drivers kissing the wall they won’t resume this session due to damages."

After missing the majority of FP1 with a hydraulic problem, Magnussen again lost vital track time when his car stopped at the side of the track midway through the session.

The virtual safety car that was required to recover the Dane's Haas scuppered the soft tyre runs of both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, leaving the Red Bull pair second and third.

In fifth and sixth, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both again struggled with porpoising at Mercedes.

Lando Norris gave provided some joy for McLaren, putting his MCL36 in seventh with Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas and Yuki Tsunoda completing the top 10.

The two Williams drivers again found themselves getting caught up with traffic, although neither was investigated in this session.