Piastri dominates in Imola as Red Bull's upgrades fail to mitigate Max's woes

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri quickly found their way to the top in FP2 as well, with Max Verstappen splitting both McLarens, three tenths adrift from Norris in P1.

Fernando Alonso after having to slam on the brakes because of Charles Leclerc in FP1 at turn 15, he had to also take avoiding action to keep from crashing into the back of a slow moving Franco Colapinto into Turn 1.

Carlos Sainz shot up straight to P1. However, Norris was able to regain the top spot, with Sainz’ teammate Alex Albon taking P3 behind him.

Whilst Pierre Gasly rounded up the top 5, Alpine’s newcomer Colapinto snuck into the top 10 as well, just 3 tenths behind his teammate.

After the first 20 minutes of the session had gone by, Lewis Hamilton and Andrea Kimi Antonelli were still in P12 and P13, as both Red Bull drivers were P7 and P9 split by George Russell in P8. However, the British driver would not stay there for too long with him donning the soft tyres on and pipping Norris’ best effort on the mediums by 0.259s.

Norris and Piastri slipped on the soft red band tyres and were decisively quicker than the rest of the field immediately. both went 4 tenths faster than Russell. Verstappen’s attempt wasn’t enough to beat even Russell and Gasly surprised slotting in ahead of Russell.

Albon and Sainz found themselves in P9 and P10 behind Yuki Tsunoda in P8. Meanwhile Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls' driver, beached his car in Sector 1, bringing about a red flag that would unlike Gabriel Borotleto's one at the end of FP1 would not signify the session's end.