Leclerc fastest for Ferrari on Day 2, as red flags pause proceedings in Barcelona

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped the leaderboard on Day 2 of pre-season running in Barcelona, a day that was punctuated by two red flags caused by separate incidents for Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Haas’s Nikita Mazepin.

Perez (P7) brought out the first red flag of the day when he stopped late into the morning, and after a lengthy stay in the garage did not emerge again until late in the day. Mazepin’s (P13) Haas stopped with a damaged fuel pump midway through the afternoon, causing a 15-minute red-flag – but the Russian was back out an hour after his incident.

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Leclerc consolidated his top spot late on with a time of 1m 19.689s, after Pierre Gasly took P2 for AlphaTauri – narrowly losing out in the final sector – having also topped the mileage stakes (150 laps). That dropped McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo to third after he led the morning's charts.

George Russell worked his way to P4 in the final hour of the day, having taken over the Mercedes from morning runner Lewis Hamilton (P15) – while Ferrari's Carlos Sainz rounded out the top five who were covered by less than a second.

Sebastian Vettel ran the afternoon stint and finished sixth for Aston Martin, ahead of Perez in P7, the Mexican adding 40 laps in the afternoon to his morning tally of 38. Mazepin jumped to P8 late on for Haas, his tally sitting at 41 laps for the day despite his afternoon stoppage at Turn 4.

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With Alex Albon ninth for Williams, rookie Zhou Guanyu completed the top 10 for Alfa Romeo. However, his team mate Valtteri Bottas managed just 21 laps in the morning thanks to reliability problems.

Nicholas Latifi of Williams ended up 11th after taking afternoon duties, while Lance Stroll was 12th overall for Aston Martin, leaving Mick Schumacher 13th for Haas.

In P14 was Esteban Ocon, the Alpine driver improving with a late-afternoon flyer – having run the whole day after Fernando Alonso opened Alpine's account on Wednesday.

Completing the standings was Bottas, hampered by Alfa Romeo's reliability issues, and a relatively anonymous Hamilton in P16.

There’s one last day of running left tomorrow before the teams depart Spain and prepare to head to Bahrain for the official pre-season test.

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