Alonso tops tricky rain-affected second practice

In the flurry of activity which took part before rain showers affected the running, Fernando Alonso placed Aston Martin in top spot, followed by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

With every team expecting rain partway through the session, drivers attempted to take advantage of the dry track to complete some running.

The result was a traffic-heavy opening 20 minutes of the session, with several drivers having to back off their flying laps due to slower cars, including Red Bull's Sergio Perez and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.

In the chaos, Alonso set the fastest lap of a 1:18.887 to top the session by over four tenths of a second on the Medium tyres.

Second place Leclerc also set his lap time on the Medium tyres, as did third-placed Max Verstappen, who was six tenths off the pace in his Red Bull.

George Russell finished fourth for Mercedes on the Hard tyre, ahead of Sainz (Medium), Alpine's Esteban Ocon (Medium) and Perez (Soft).

With the rain gradually dampening the track across the session, drivers struggled to get to grips with the damp conditions, but all drivers managed to complete the session unscathed.

The Mercedes drivers completed high mileage in the damp conditions, with both Russell and Lewis Hamilton being shown to have minor moments in the damp conditions, whilst McLaren's Lando Norris had a trip across the grass at Turn 1 when the conditions were worsening.

There were a couple of off-track moments for Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, who had two errors at Turn 3.

The first instance was under acceleration out of the corner, which almost resulted in the AMR23 hitting the inside barrier. His second moment came when under braking for the corner, which resulted in him running wide and off-track.