Sainz leads Leclerc and Verstappen in second practice at the Austrian Grand Prix

Carlos Sainz topped the second practice session at the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. Charlse Leclerc finished in second position, just 0.05 seconds slower than his team-mate.

Max Verstappen finished in third position and will start the sprint race in the afternoon in pole position.

The second sprint race of the season will decide the starting grid for the race on Sunday. The race on Saturday afternoon has also acquired more importance this season because the winner gets eight points and slides down to the eighth-placed finisher getting one point.

Sergio Pérez has been penalized after qualification for exceeding track limits and has been dropped to thirteenth place on the grid for the sprint race.

The second free practice session at the Red Bull Ring started with air temperatures at 20 degrees C and track temperatures at 33 degrees C.

The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the white-striped hard compound tyres (C3), yellow-striped medium compound tyres (C4), and red-striped soft compound tyres (C5), the softest range of compounds in the Pirelli tyre range.

Lewis Hamilton sat in the garage until only thirteen minutes were left in the session as his W13 was being built on a new chassis after the heavy crash in qualification on Friday.

Kevin Magnussen set the initial pace with a lap time of 1m11.479s. Verstappen slotted into the top of the time charts with a lap time of 1m09.067s. Sainz and Leclerc were in second and third positions.

With fifteen minutes of the session gone, George Russell ventured out on his repaired W13 on the soft compound tyres and went sixth fastest. Russell then improved to third position.

Both Alpine F1 drivers, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, finally ventured out on the soft compound tyres and slotted into fourth and sixth positions.

With twenty-five minutes to go, Leclerc went fastest with a lap time of 1m08.660s on the soft compound tyres. Then team-mate Sainz went ahead of Leclerc with a lap time of 1m08.610s, just 0.05s faster than Leclerc.

With thirteen minutes to go, Hamilton came out on the soft compound tyres and slotted into ninth position. The Briton goes into the sprint race with very limited running.

The session ended with Sainz on top ahead of Leclerc. Verstappen was in third position ahead of Alonso and Ocon.

Pérez was in sixth position ahead of Russell, Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton and Lando Norris to round off the top ten positions.

The sprint race will give drivers like Hamilton and Pérez a chance to improve their positions for the race on Sunday.

2022 Austrian Gran Prix Second Practice (FP2) Results: