00:00It's a nice wide pit lane for this race. Very different to Monaco. I mean the team's working
00:06in the most cramped condition. You see Ralf Schoenacker down there with a mic in his hand.
00:10Bernie Collins on duty for us in the pit lane as the drivers make their way out onto the track
00:15and it is Charles Leclerc. Are we going for a lap with Fernando Alonso? Yes we are. Take us through
00:20the next just under three miles. Anthony Davidson and Fernando Alonso. Yeah so you're heading down
00:24the main straight. He backs out of it though and that's why he's checking in the mirrors. There's
00:28Lewis Hamilton goes a bit wide on the exit of turn nine. It's a tricky one. I mentioned
00:34this in FP1 as well Crofty how you see the white line just after the corner flash before your
00:39eyes and it's already gone. That's the DRS line. You may be surprised to learn set of one is
00:45purple. I should rip the car more. Oh that looks like Ollie Bearman. It is. To create more of
00:53a challenge for the drivers Crofty. That's why we're doing it. Good answer. Ollie Bearman shows
00:59as a great example there. It's the top teams out there but with the cost cap in place today
01:04that argument doesn't hold the same weight as it once did. It's like it's like this right. As you
01:10know I'm a big West Ham fan and as you know we've not had the best of seasons. Yeah just too wide on
01:16the on the got onto the dusty part of the track. Well off the circuit actually the left wheel was just
01:21dipped onto the red part and you can see that actually the black rubber lines. Yeah. He was
01:25well away from there. Yeah sorry. Yeah just spinning around. Also the cars as a visual distraction as well
01:34in front. That doesn't help but just finding excuses for Ollie there. Tell me you took us an
01:43hour and a half to get to the circuit this morning. Oh he means on the circuit right sorry. Obviously on the
01:48front wings and maybe maybe they've just thought okay enough's enough. We're going to throttle back on
01:53this one. What are we looking at here? Turn 10. Verstappen loses the rear mid corner. It's a common trait of
01:59that corner actually. And we often see Max struggling with the car on a Friday. This is Lewis Hamilton getting
02:06a toe behind Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso getting a bit of DRS in the toe behind Lewis Hamilton on
02:14the ball with Alonso. DRS can be quite powerful here on this long straight especially if the wind
02:19is a headwind. We have the heat of the day in front of us. Yeah that's better wasn't it? Yeah the good
02:25thing is that the weekend is very long. Even the championship is very long. What was what was he
02:31complaining about with Lewis Hamilton? Enjoying the benefits of that flexibility and now with a third
02:36gone having a bit of a struggle with balance. This is Gabriel Bortoleto into turn 10. We saw Max
02:42Verstappen running wide and Gabriel Bortoleto running even wider in the south. But it's a
02:47really tricky corner at the end of that DRS stretch. There'll be some people thinking why
02:51why did he just turn the steering wheel more? It's because he could already feel the back
02:55end of the car wasn't wasn't connected properly before committing to the corner.
02:59Isaac Hadja on the radio complaining about the traffic. Maybe a slap on the wrist coming Franco
03:06Colapinto's way. He hasn't been referred to the stewards as yet. Charles Leclerc crosses the line.
03:10He was 8th fastest. He moves into the top five and ahead of him Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen.
03:15Lando Norris and George Russell who has the fastest time so far by about a tenth and a half.
03:20For George Russell we ride on board with that Pfizer cam into the final corner. That was so quick. I can't believe
03:27they can take that corner full throttle. And this said this is an interesting one because doesn't go even a personal best in first sector.
03:35But it's right there where he needs to be in the second and final sector. What does Kimi Antonelli do? He goes P2 two and a half tens down on on his team mate.
03:45Over the curve we go. Lando Norris goes third fastest exactly the same time as Max Verstappen who did his first. So he gets second and Norris gets third. And 24 milliseconds now between the top three.
03:59Oh mate, this amount of sliding a half is not normal mate. It's just crazy.
04:05So same feeling as FB1, just sliding both axles.
04:10Yeah, literally. Just sliding around. Not great.
04:13So what can they do for Yuki Tsunoda there? Lots to play with here, but very much not going anywhere immediately at least.
04:20Thank you very much, Bernie. Lance Stroll's just gone 12th fastest. One man who is going places is Oscar Piastri. Crosses the line and goes quickest overall by nearly three-tenths of a second.
04:30He's going to highlight what you were just talking about, Crofty, in turn seven. So he just loses the rear slightly. Yeah, a bit of a late turn in as well.
04:37That's where he dropped at least a 10th or two. And then here understeers actually through turn nine. It looked more dramatic from the off-board shot. And here is the off-board shot.
04:48And look at the energy going through the left rear tyre as well. Completely against the bead of the rim of the wheel. And yeah, that's the shot we saw. So yeah, actually on board looked less dramatic.
04:58Very interestingly there. Franco Colopinto earlier in the session, now Lance Stroll using the hard tyre. So I wonder have the teams thought ahead here and thought hard tyre's not necessarily going to be the right race tyre for this weekend.
05:13We could do this on a soft and two mediums. Or are they just keeping one set of hards back just in case?
05:20That's all they feel like they want to do.
05:21On board with Verstappen and just seeing him down the main straight and getting the benefits of a very nice slipstream.
05:31But the car in front using TRS. And I think he's going to complain about that.
05:36Oh, man.
05:39I'm very clever.
05:42Or extremely clever.
05:45It's practice and he's on a lap. So why?
05:47Well, the reason they do it, Crofty, is because Leclerc would know if he were to let Verstappen by, then suddenly you're in his dirty air. You're going to have to slow down a lot.
05:55The same was when you're getting faster yourself. You don't feel like you're doing anything better than before.
06:00So this is a few highlights of that lap by Oscar Piastri. No sliding there. Going through turns seven and eight. And that looked fairly planted, didn't it, at the top of the hill.
06:11Beautiful. It's a different car, isn't it, when it's on new tyres and the lower fuel. And like I say, it looks like it's on rails. It's not. You're still at the edge of adhesion most of the time.
06:23But from what I saw from that lap anyway, it looked like he'd completely mastered where he needed the car at all times.
06:31If he does that again tomorrow, I dare say that's McLaren on pole here for the second time.
06:35Right, that's it for practice for today. Sixty more minutes to come tomorrow. It was Lando Norris, quickest in FP1.
06:44Oscar Piastri, his teammate, with the fastest time in FP2.
06:49By 0.286 of a second from George Russell. Was George just hanging back a bit too much in the footer sector?
06:57Is there more to come from that Mercedes? We'll find out when we get to qualifying, I'm sure.
07:01Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, matching each other down to three decimal places.
07:06Leclerc, Antonelli, Alonso in the top seven for Aston Martin after getting into Q3 for the last couple of sessions.
07:14Then came Gasly, Hadjot, Lawson. Lewis Hamilton saying his Ferrari was undriveable.
07:18Just bad at times. 11th fastest for him, ahead of Nico Hülkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda, who was having problems with sliding.
07:26Franco Colopinto was the slowest driver, only one and a half seconds separating 20 drivers.
07:31Bring on qualifying tomorrow.
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