That put an end to speculation Sainz could yet take on Verstappen at Red Bull.
And with Norris’ McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri claiming that “our pace and times on the intermediates in [F]P2 looked solid”.
• The opening before Turn 2 on LHS at Pit Exit has been moved a few meters further downstream.
with only Perez and his 10 points for P5 to take into account – meaning Alex Albon would have been promoted into the points if Red Bull were not present at Albert Park.
“So it’s very important for us that you can reasonably follow another car in a cornering situation and to do that we need to make sure from the aero concept – the amount of dirty air being generated – is not impacting too much the following car.
”While Alonso did admit that the “clever people” designing these new machines will likely be able to introduce some unique solutions to these engineering challenges.