Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso pulled out a fast lap of 1 minute, 28.827 seconds during Thursday’s practice session for Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at Jeddah Formula 1 Street Circuit.
He was .230 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, who filed into second.Â
“We didn’t have the car in the perfect window and FP2 was a little bit of a scrappy session. The times looked good on the single lap, and we’re not too sure yet where we’re at on the long runs,” Russell admitted.Â
Meanwhile, reigning Formula 1 champion and last week’s winner Max Verstappen shot up to third by the end of second practice with a 1 minute, 29.158-second lap time. He led the first practice session earlier in the day.Â
“The practice sessions today have been pretty good overall. The pace has been good on both the long and short runs and they have prepared the track well for a street circuit. Overall, we learnt a lot and there are always things you look to do better on a one lap performance,” the Red Bull Racing driver said.
“We know some other teams have a bit more power on the one lap so we’ll look into the data to try and improve our overall performance and extract as much as we can from this.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth, while Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez finished fifth.Â