The Finn led t♔he way on both the medium and soft compounds and finished over two-tenths clear of the field to top the more representative session that took place under the lights at the Losail International Circuit. 

Bottas had a faster lap deleted for track limits before he produced his quickes𓃲t legal effort, a 1m23.148s, during his second soft tyre run. 

Just as he w🎃as in FP1, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly sat second as he continued his impressive start to the weekend, while championship leader Max Verstappen wꦛas 0.350s down in his Red Bull. 

Verstappen needed ⭕two attempts on 𒉰softs to outpace title rival Lewis Hamilton, who wound up fourth-quickest and 0.422s adrift of his Mercedes teammate. 

As it did during qualifying at Interlagos last weekend, the Red Bull rear wing was seen behaving oddly at the end of the straights. A DRS issue briefly kept Verstappen in the garage✃ before his qualifyꦓing simulation run. 

McLaren’s Lando 🙈Norris got within half a second of Bottas to sit fifth, ahead oꩵf the lead Aston Martin of Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri. 

Sergio Perez could only set a time good enough for eighth in his Red Bull, with Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz completing the top 10ℱ for Aston Martin and Ferrari respectively. 

Traffic once again proved problematic a🐽round the tight, fast-flowing Losail track and ruined a number of drivers’ low fuel runs before attention switched to high-fuel race simu🅘lations. 

Unlike FP1 - which took place d🌞uring the heat of the Qatar afternoon - FP2 was held at dusk, with lower track temperatures that will be seen again in qualify🔯ing and the race. 

Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin did not🦂 take part in second practice ♋due to a chassis change after he incurred damage to his car over the kerbs in FP1.