Bottas quickest ahead of Gasly and Verstappen in second practice in Qatar

Qatar Grand Prix 2021

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time in the second practice session of the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, ahead of AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in P3.

With the second session taking place under the lights at Losail, temperatures and therefore conditions were deemed more representative of qualifying and Sunday's race, which will also take place in the evening. After drivers pushed track limits in FP1, the stewards clarified ahead of FP2 that track limits were to be set by the purple and white kerbs across the whole circuit.

More off-track drama was delivered before FP2 by the tense press conference involving Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff and Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner, during which it was announced that Mercedes' right of review over the Lap 48 incident in Brazil had been denied.

Back on track, where the Red Bulls and Mercedes began on medium tyres, and the opening exchanges saw Bottas set the benchmark of 1m23.324s, three-tenths ahead of team mate Hamilton. The Finn improved to 1m23.148s (shrugging off a previously deleted lap) when softs became the tyre of choice halfway through, those behind him wrestling with traffic and track limits.

Gasly slotted into second place, two-tenths off Bottas, for AlphaTauri, while Verstappen was just a tenth-and-a-half away in P3 for Red Bull. That put Hamilton down to P4, four-tenths off his leading team mate, before he ran very wide on a late long-run as the session ticked down.

Lando Norris was just under half a second off the leading pace in P5 for McLaren, while team mate Daniel Ricciardo was another half a second off in P14.

Lance Stroll took sixth for Aston Martin ahead of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda in P7, both drivers threatening to break into the top five throughout the session.

That left Sergio Perez eighth, just over six-tenths off P1, the Red Bull driver having aborted a flying lap for traffic before being confined to the garage with a rear wing issue - with the team also seen working on Verstappen's rear wing. In ninth was Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel, who was impeded on a flying lap by both Hamilton and Perez, leaving Carlos Sainz 10th, the Ferrari driver having kicked up a spectacular dust cloud on an early soft-tyred run.

Charles Leclerc, who ran wide on a late long-run on soft tyres, finished 13th for Ferrari with the Alpines splitting the two Ferraris. Esteban Ocon was 11th and his team mate Fernando Alonso 12th, the pair separated by 0.015s.

Fifteenth-place Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen was half a second off Ricciardo ahead, but half a second ahead of team mate Antonio Giovinazzi in P17. Between the Alfa Romeo drivers was 16th-place Williams racer George Russell.

Nicholas Latifi was two seconds off top spot in P18 for Williams, ahead of the Haas drivers.

Nikita Mazepin sat out the session having needed a new chassis after hitting the kerbs too hard in FP1 and the Haas driver was 20th by default. Team mate Mick Schumacher was 19th, 2.4s off the pace.