Nine thousandths of a second separated the McLaren from the Mercedes when the times settled in Barcelona. After a morning that belonged to one team, the afternoon hinted at a fight.

Lando Norris edged George Russell by 0.009s to top second practice for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, the reigning champion’s 1:15.426 turning a Mercedes morning into a McLaren afternoon by the slenderest margin. Oscar Piastri made it two McLarens near the front, within 0.06s of his teammate, leaving the front three covered by barely half a tenth.

The session was the first full look at the grid this weekend, with all 22 regular drivers back after seven of them ceded FP1 to rookies. Norris, who had watched Fornaroli drive his car in the morning, returned to set a lap defined by small slides and corrections as he coaxed the McLaren through the long corners.

Russell again looked the strongest Mercedes, having topped the morning, and the narrow deficit did little to dent the team’s billing as the weekend’s pace-setters. The more pointed Mercedes story sat a row back. Kimi Antonelli, back in his car after sitting out FP1, could manage only fifth, the championship leader hampered by brake trouble and a lack of grip as he hunts a sixth straight win.

Charles Leclerc split the silver cars in fourth for Ferrari, with Verstappen sixth, audibly unhappy with his Red Bull’s balance for a second session after struggling for grip on the hardest tyre earlier. Behind them the order took on a junior-series flavour, Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls seventh and Gabriel Bortoleto’s Audi eighth, ahead of a struggling Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton’s afternoon was a grumble. The Ferrari driver ended ninth and reported that something’s wrong with the rear of the car, with Isack Hadjar completing the top ten on his first running of the weekend after missing FP1, followed by Nico Hulkenberg and Ollie Bearman.

There was the usual trouble down the order. Liam Lawson stopped at the pit-lane exit early with a technical issue, and Valtteri Bottas lost much of the hour to a car problem that kept his Cadillac in the garage (an ECU fault, affecting the electronic unit that manages the car’s systems). Perez drew a warning after nearly clipping Hadjar at Turn 4, while grip and tyre wear were the shared complaints in the heat.

The lap times told their own small story of progress. Verstappen opened the session almost matching Russell’s morning best on the hardest compound, a marker of how much the track had improved, before Piastri became the first driver under 1:16 on the medium tyre. By the end McLaren had nudged ahead, Mercedes remained right there, and Ferrari and Red Bull lurked within range. After a season in which Mercedes have won everything, an afternoon split by a few hundredths is the closest thing to a contest Barcelona has produced so far.

Thumbnail: By courtesy of Pirelli