Bahrain GP: Lewis Hamilton faster, Alex Albon crashes, practice two

The illuminated night practice session at Sakhir produces dramatic results with two red flags; Red Bull will work overnight to repair “significant” damage to Albon’s crashed car; Hamilton ahead of Verstappen at the top of the timesheet

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The session comes to a halt after Alex Albon hit the barriers hard during FP2 before the Bahrain GP.

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in a practice session two halted twice by red flags at the Bahrain GP, ​​once for a major crash for Red Bull’s Alex Albon and the other when a loose dog ran onto the circuit.

Hamilton completed a late qualifying simulation on soft tires to lead the session with a best time of 1: 28.971, three tenths faster than Max Verstappen, although the Dutchman’s best lap came earlier in the session on slower medium tires.

But it was a session under the Bahrain floodlights to forget for Verstappen’s teammate Albon.

Struggling to keep his Red Bull seat for 2021, Albon lost control of his RB16 and crashed into barriers as it opened at the last corner in just his fourth lap of the session.

The accident caused what Red Bull boss Christian Horner described as “significant” damage to the car ahead of repair work that night, with Albon out of the loop for the remainder of the session.

“It was just one of those things. It should have really come off, I was surprised by the lack of grip, but it’s just one of them,” said Albon, who was given the go-ahead on a medical routine. check-up “A rather difficult angle and uncomfortable those crashes. So it’s not fun, but everything is fine.”

Sky F1’s Damon Hill, 1996 world champion, said: “Everyone has done this … but Alex Albon doesn’t need it now. He still has the rest of the weekend left, though.”

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The session was briefly stopped because a dog was on the track during FP2 before the Bahrain GP. Also listen to the funny radio messages of Sebastian Vettel.

After clean-up work for Albon’s accident, the session resumed, but almost immediately stopped again when a dog was spotted running around the circuit.

It is the second time in as many races that a dog has entered the race track and fortunately managed to escape under a fence and out of the place.

Who ended up where behind Hamilton?

When the session finally resumed for real, Hamilton worked his way to the top of the order to complete a double on Friday in his first appearance on a race weekend as a seven-time world champion.

Unusually, Verstappen had been unable to improve his time on the medium tires (1: 29.318) when he completed his qualifying simulation on the softs earlier in the session.

Valtteri Bottas was third in the second Mercedes, Sergio Pérez of Racing Point fourth and Daniel Ricciardo fifth for Renault.

With four teams – Racing Point, McLaren, Renault and Ferrari – fighting for third place in the Constructors’ Championship heading into the final three rounds of the season, the midfield boss looked competitive based on Friday’s testing.

Pierre Gasly was sixth for AlphaTauri with Lando Norris seventh in the McLaren lead.

Drivers continued to test Pirelli’s 2021 tires in the second session, although several gave pessimistic evaluations on the product after the session, with Hamilton particularly impressed.