Hamilton leads the way over Verstappen in second practice

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has gone quickest in second practice at Portimao ahead of this weekend's Portuguese GP. The reigning Champion went a tenth quicker than title rival Red Bull's Max Verstappen through the qualifying simulation laps, with Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas finishing in third place.

With the session time being far more representative of the conditions in which the race will be held on Sunday, the drivers mostly went on track with the medium compound, having run the hard and softs during the morning session.

Despite a early scare with an apparent brake-by-wire failure, Max Verstappen was quickly back on track and put in a time of 1:20.322 on the medium compound to jump ahead of early leader Bottas.

Mercedes were the first of the front-runners to swap to the soft tyres for their qualifying simulations, approaching the halfway mark of the session. Bottas logged a 1:20.1 to go a tenth clear of Verstappen, with Hamilton putting in a much stronger 1:19.8 to go 0.3 clear at the top ahead of Bottas, with Verstappen's medium tyre lap in third.

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz jumped to third then, with Alpine's Fernando Alonso putting in a stomping lap to move to fourth.

The Red Bulls finally switched to the soft compounds just after the halfway point, with Sergio Perez having his first flying lap ruined by encountering a loitering Mazepin on the apex of Turn 1. Verstappen fared better, jumping up to second and a tenth away from Hamiton's best.

With the session settling back down to concentrate on longer runs for the last fifteen minutes, Hamilton's best time went unbeaten, ahead of Verstappen and Bottas.

Sainz finished in fourth, with Alonso in fifth just 0.015 clear of Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished in seventh, with Daniel Ricciardo finishing as the lead McLaren in eighth place ahead of Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.

Perez never managed to put in a strong time on the soft tyre, finishing in tenth place as a result.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly finished in 11th, ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris, while Williams' George Russell finished a commendable 13th and ahead of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel.

Kimi Raikkonen led the Alfa Romeo charge in 16th, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi, with Mick Schumacher in 18th for Haas.

Williams' Nicholas Latifi, who went off into the gravel midway through the session, finished in 19th, with Haas' Nikita Mazepin bringing up the very back of the grid.

The start of the session was delayed by ten minutes as, just like in 2020, a loose drain cover caused concern. This required the attention of Race Control, who attended the scene to ensure the cover was properly secured before the session began properly.

The ten minutes wasn't taken away from the hour long allocation.