Russell leads FP2 from Perez and Leclerc

The Briton, having qualified in 11th for the first sprint race of the season, which will take place on Saturday afternoon, remained at the top of the leaderboard with his 1m19.457s.

That gave him a slender 0.08s cushion to Perez, while Ferrari’s Leclerc was 0.2s in arrears.

Perez comfortably led the way in the first half of the hour-long session, as he kept whittling away at his personal best lap on the red-walled soft tyres to maintain his place atop the times.

It was