Esteban Ocon Heads Sergio Pérez in Final Practice for São Paulo Grand Prix

Esteban Ocon led the way in the second and final free practice session of the São Paulo Grand Prix as teams did their homework ahead of the third and final sprint race of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season on Saturday afternoon.

With times meaning very little due to cars being in parc ferme conditions and most of the running being done on higher fuel levels, Ocon set the best time of 1:14.604 in his BWT Alpine F1 Team A522 to best Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez by just under two tenths of a second.

It was quite a clean session, with the odd lock up here and there, but everyone got through unscathed ahead of the twenty-four lap Sprint race later in the day, and the promised rain never materialised, although is still a possibility for the race.

George Russell, who will start third on the grid for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team on Saturday afternoon despite ending his Qualifying in the turn four gravel, placed third, with Fernando Alonso showing that Alpine have a good set-up for this part of the weekend by setting the fourth best time.

Max Verstappen, who is aiming for a fifteenth win of the season on Sunday, was fifth in the second Red Bull having left it late to switch to the soft tyres, with the team focusing on gathering data on the harder compounds that will help them across Saturday’s Sprint and Sunday’s main race at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Lewis Hamilton was sixth in the second Mercedes ahead of Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, while Mick Schumacher finished eighth ahead of his b team-mate, and surprise Sprint race polesitter, Kevin Magnussen.

Lando Norris, who is still in recovery mode after a bout of food poisoning ahead of the weekend in Brazil, completed the top ten for the McLaren F1 Team, with the Briton finishing just ahead of his former team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr., the Spaniard the best of the Scuderia Ferrari drivers in eleventh.

Yuki Tsunoda was twelfth for AlphaTauri ahead of the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, with Daniel Ricciardo fourteenth in the second McLaren ahead of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas.

Nicholas Latifi placed sixteenth for Williams Racing, while Logan Sargeant completed another clean session as he replaced Alexander Albon in the second FW44.  Sargeant may have finished bottom of the timing screens, but he completed the necessary number of laps to gain another point for his Superlicence as he bids to earn a place on the Formula 1 grid in 2023.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team had a busy session as both Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel completed more than forty laps each, but they were only seventeenth and eighteenth respectively, ahead only of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu and rookie Sargeant.

Not much can be read into the results, and with a mixed up grid and a new pole sitter, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top in the final sprint race of the season.  Can Magnussen hold onto the lead into turn one and fight off the challenges from behind. It’s going to be interesting to find out.

Autódromo José Carlos Pace Free Practice 2 Result