The sun was still shining brightly over the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as the second free practice session got underway. This time, it was Charles Leclerc who was first out on track, running on the medium compound tyres. Most drivers followed his choice, except for Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto, who began their runs on the hard tyres, likely testing for race conditions.

Early in the session, Leclerc set the first target time, but McLaren soon took over. Lando Norris topped the timesheets ahead of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, just like in FP1, showing again that McLaren is in strong form this weekend.

However, not everyone had a clean session. Oliver Bearman spun his Haas at Turn 3 and kicked up a lot of gravel. He caused only a brief yellow flag, but the team had to work hard to get his car back into shape. At the same time, Gabriel Bortoleto’s car was also being checked in the Sauber garage after some early issues.

The Aston Martin drivers were very active on the team radio. Fernando Alonso wasn’t happy with Lewis Hamilton’s positioning on track, calling him “the hero of the day” after getting stuck behind him into Turn 1. Meanwhile, Lance Stroll had serious complaints about his own car, saying “everything is bad.” He came back to the pits, climbed out of the car, and the team even changed his seat to try to fix the issue.

As the session continued, George Russell put in a very strong lap on soft tyres, jumping to the top of the times with a 1 minute 13.046. His teammate Kimi Antonelli followed closely with a solid lap, losing only a quarter of a second. Then came identical laps from Verstappen and Norris, both setting a time of 1 minute 13.070, just behind Russell.

Yuki Tsunoda was far from happy, saying his car had “crazy” levels of sliding and “no grip.” Lewis Hamilton also continued to struggle in the Ferrari, saying the car was “not driveable,” echoing his complaints from FP1.

In the end it was Oscar Piastri who stole the show. On soft tyres, he delivered the fastest lap of the day of 1:12.760 with purple sectors across the board. He finished the session almost three tenths ahead of Russell and just over three tenths ahead of Verstappen, who took third. Norris was fourth, missing out on a top-three spot only by countback, as he had set the exact same time as Verstappen.

Leclerc, who had started the session well, later struggled with grip and ended up fifth. Antonelli was sixth, ahead of Alonso in seventh. Pierre Gasly had a strong run and finished eighth for Alpine, just ahead of Racing Bulls drivers Isack Hadjar in ninth and Liam Lawson in tenth.