News Summary
- Charles Leclerc was seventh in FP2, 0.720s off Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s benchmark and 0.270s behind Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
- Dino Beganovic drove Leclerc’s Ferrari in FP1, leaving Leclerc with one hour of running on Friday.
- Leclerc plans to make set-up changes before Saturday’s final practice as he looks for more pace in qualifying.
Charles Leclerc plans to change his Ferrari’s set-up after a difficult first hour on track at the São Paulo Grand Prix. He finished seventh in Friday’s second practice at Interlagos and already had a direction in mind for the changes he wanted to try on Saturday.
Leclerc had sat out the opening session while Dino Beganovic drove his Ferrari in FP1. That made the afternoon his first opportunity to assess the car on a circuit that had been partially resurfaced before the weekend.
“I only drove in FP2 today and it was quite a tricky session. The feeling in the car wasn’t quite right, so there’s plenty for us to work on tonight,” Leclerc said.
“I have some ideas about the direction we need to take with the set-up and we’ll make some changes for tomorrow. We need to find some performance, and hopefully we can make a good step forward for qualifying.”
Leclerc finishes seventh after a close call at Turn 15
Leclerc was on a flying lap when he came up behind Rafael Câmara at Turn 15, on the uphill run onto the main straight. He moved right to avoid contact with the Haas, taking a significant part of the Ferrari off the track.
Both drivers continued, and the stewards later issued Câmara a driving reprimand for impeding Leclerc.
Leclerc improved to 1:11.483 and stayed seventh. Lewis Hamilton was sixth on a 1:11.213, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli set the pace for Mercedes with a 1:10.763. See the full São Paulo GP FP2 results.
Hamilton had his own difficulties across both Friday sessions. After FP2, he described Interlagos as “very bumpy and slippery” and said the conditions made it difficult to get his tyres into the right operating window.
Leclerc has one more hour of practice to assess the set-up changes before qualifying. FP3 begins at 11:30 local time on Saturday, with qualifying at 15:00.
GRANDE PRÊMIO is following every session of the São Paulo Grand Prix in Formula 1 live from Interlagos.
