Big Leclerc crash curtails Saudi practice, Hamilton fastest

A huge crash for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc prematurely ended the second Formula 1 practice at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, as Lewis Hamilton completed a clean sweep of the Friday sessions.

With just under five minutes of FP2 remaining, Leclerc lost control of his Ferrari at the high-speed Turn 22/23 section.

Leclerc walked away seemingly unscathed, but his Ferrari suffered severe damage to both ends of the car and will likely require a lengthy repair job for his team.

Charles Leclerc is off into the wall at Turn 22

He is out of his car and confirms he's okay over the radio. The session has been red flagged and will not be resumed#SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/KWRttUcl0W

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 3, 2021

Barring a small spin for the Haas of Nikita Mazepin at Turn 2 which required Hamilton to take avoiding action, it marks the first major F1 crash at the new Jeddah street circuit.

The high-speed nature of F1’s newest circuit also created a number of close calls as drivers struggled to find the space to move out of the way of their rivals.

On one of his flying laps, Hamilton found a plethora of cars in his path to the final corner and had to abandon the lap. Hamilton nor his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas were able to complete a soft tyre run.

But Hamilton still managed to top the session, bettering his FP1 benchmark by over seven tenths – albeit helped by the cooler night conditions in FP2.

Hamilton topped the session on a 1m29.018s, which was just 0.061s faster than his team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Both drivers set their times on the medium tyres.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was third quickest, just 0.081s adrift of Hamilton’s benchmark, but on the soft tyres.

F1 championship leader Max Verstappen was also left frustrated by traffic and decided to prioritise more qualifying simulations, despite his team informing him that it would compromise his race simulation.

He ended up fourth quickest on the softs ahead of the Alpine duo of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon.

Leclerc’s team-mate Carlos Sainz was seventh fastest, while Yuki Tsunoda managed to post the eighth fastest time on the hard tyres.

The top 10 was completed by the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez, who is still struggling to find form in Saudi Arabia, and Leclerc.

Practice 2 Results