The whole paddock spent Thursday predicting carnage. FP1 thankfully went by without a single incident (inchident). Then, FP2 started and the track took its first victim.
FP1, nothing happened. It was quite uneventful, but it's good that nobody crashed and got hurt. Russell set a time of 1:34.077, which is the first benchmark ever set here. Antonelli was second fastest with +0.286 for a Mercedes one-two. Leclerc third, Hamilton fourth, and Verstappen fifth. No red flags, no contact. After nineteen red flags in two days of F3 testing, F1 managed a clean session.
In FP2, Antonelli got the fastest time with 1:33.662, with Leclerc +0.113 behind and Hamilton +0.149. Ferrari really went: "let me cook." Lindblad was fourth fastest when his rear stepped away at turn 13 and he hit the barriers, triggering the weekend's first red flag. About fifteen minutes lost.
Norris hardly ran at all. He had a gearbox issue that kept him in the garage for most of the session, and McLaren ended up changing the gearbox. Alonso sat out early running after a clutch issue during his FP1 practice starts.
The Madring waited one session before it bit. Gasly was only off by an hour.