RACE DEBRIEF

    Fernando Alonso led the way during second practice for the Australian Grand Prix, which featured a small window of dry weather conditions before rain hit the Albert Park Circuit.

    Alonso produced a time of 1m 18.887s on medium tyres in the early stages of FP2 – a tenth slower than Max Verstappen’s soft-shod FP1 benchmark – to finish almost half a second clear of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.

    FP2: Alonso fastest for Aston Martin before rain falls on Albert Park

    With rain arriving around 15 minutes into the session, there were plenty of slips and slides on slick tyres before drivers switched over to intermediates for the remainder of the afternoon and collected some wet data.

    Behind Alonso and Leclerc, third went to Verstappen, followed by George Russell’s Mercedes, Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, Esteban Ocon’s Alpine and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, who lost another soft tyre run in the opening minutes when he hit traffic.

    Lando Norris had a scare when he took to the grass in the changing conditions but kept his McLaren out of the wall en route to eighth overall, as Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg and the other Alpine of Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10.

    Hit go in the video player above to check out the highlights from FP2 in Australia.