Valtteri Bottas paced the pack in practice for the Chinese Grand Prix, entering the 1,000th Grand Prix as championship leader by a single point ahead of Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Practice has painted exactly the picture fans had hoped for — a weekend where nothing is certain and anything could happen. Mercedes and Ferrari traded times throughout the opening two sessions of the weekend, although Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were a little ways back on Bottas and Sebastian Vettel. But Red Bull also showed its hand with Max Verstappen ending the day third.
In the sister Red Bull, Pierre Gasly could only manage 10th with his best time being almost a second slower than Verstappen’s. Both Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat in the Toro Rosso cars set times only a tenth off the Frenchman's pace. And although it’s been said many times already, improvement is needed and time is running out even at this early stage of the season.
McLaren also enjoyed another productive day with both cars making the top eight.
Away from the top three teams, only Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault prevented Carlos Sainz from finishing as the "best of the rest," and a strong showing from Daniel Ricciardo has set up an interesting battle between the two teams for the rest of the milestone weekend.
Racing Point (formerly Force India) and Haas struggled to find any sort of pace on Friday. Romain Grosjean suffered a strange front wing failure with the bumps into turn 1 appearing to instigate the failure, but that was little excuse for a performance which saw him finish 17th, just one place behind Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen. The two Racing Point cars of Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez were directly ahead of them in the order but, compared to the success of recent years for both teams, 2019 is already proving to be a difficult slog.
Still sitting at the bottom of the pile is Williams, but it was not all doom and gloom for them on Friday. Only just off the pace of the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi and Grosjean’s Haas, the strong DRS effect during Sunday’s Grand Prix could enable them to do better than be the last of the finishers. It's still not a great weekend in terms of prospects for the once championship-winning team, but there are small signs of encouragement for fans.
Practice 2 Results
Pos.
Driver
Constructor
Tire
Time
1
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
S
1:33.330
2
Sebastian Vettel
Scuderia Ferrari
S
+0.027
3
Max Verstappen
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
S
+0.221
4
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
S
+0.707
5
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault F1 Team
S
+0.766
6
Carlos Sainz Jr.
McLaren F1 Team
S
+0.811
7
Charles Leclerc
Scuderia Ferrari
S
+0.828
8
Lando Norris
McLaren F1 Team
S
+0.966
9
Daniel Ricciardo
Renault F1 Team
S
+1.006
10
Pierre Gasly
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
S
+1.125
11
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo Racing
S
+1.221
12
Alexander Albon
Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda
S
+1.304
13
Daniil Kvyat
Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda
S
+1.364
14
Lance Stroll
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
S
+1.449
15
Sergio Perez
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
S
+1.454
16
Kevin Magnussen
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
S
+1.458
17
Romain Grosjean
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
S
+2.374
18
Antonio Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo Racing
S
+2.584
19
George Russell
ROKiT Williams Racing
S
+2.791
20
Robert Kubica
ROKiT Williams Racing
S
+2.899
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