Leclerc was fastest from Oscar Piastri at the end of the second hour of free practice, with Yuki Tsunoda a surprise third best.
Equally surprising was the performance of Max Verstappen, who again had a scrappy session as he left the road and could do no better than seventh.
After his car shut down 19 minutes into opening practice, Alex Albon was not immediately on track as the session began. Nor was his team-mate, Logan Sargeant, with both cars on stands in the Williams garage, the team advising its delayed entry into the session was part of its run programme.
Pierre Gasly had a spin at Variante Alta after eight minutes, losing the back end of the Alpine exiting the complex – it was innocuous enough and he was able to carry on once he’d righted the car.
Ferrari showed strong early pace, with Charles Leclerc fastest ahead of Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda as the session followed its usual format, with the early laps followed by a lull ahead of qualifying simulations.
The day’s early running had been more mixed given most teams (nine of 10) had upgrades they were assessing in the opening hour, clouding the order somewhat.
Free Practice 2 reverted to type with a mix of runs early in the session before focus switched to single lap performance.
Through that single lap period in the middle of the session, Leclerc remained fastest, improving to a 1:15.906s while Oscar Piastri rose to second best, 0.192s back from the lead Ferrari.
Backing up his promising pace earlier in the day, Tsunoda remained third fastest with a 1:16.286s, a 1.1s improvement on the lap that left him sixth fastest in Free Practice 1.
Mercedes sat fourth and fifth best, Lewis Hamilton ahead of George Russell, with Carlos Sainz sixth ahead of the two Red Bulls.
Verstappen and Perez again struggled, the former complaining about inconsistent grip across the front axle of his RB20. That left the pair down the order, with Yuki Tsunoda a surprise third on single-lap pace.
There’s work to do for the Milton Keynes operation, which had an unusually scrappy day.
Max Verstappen left the road on three occasions, and had other moments too, as he struggled to string a competitive lap together in either Free Practice 1 or the day’s second session. The Dutchman reported inconsistent grip across the front axle.
Traffic was a problem throughout the session, Sergio Perez and Leclerc coming under investigation by officials for impeding after they squabbled over the same piece of road at Tosa.
There was another incident at the same corner too, when Verstappen encountered a slow-moving Lewis Hamilton.
With his lap ruined, Verstappen slowed and expressed his displeasure to the Mercedes driver, impeding Perez behind him in the process.
Daniel Ricciardo ended the session 11th, his best a 1:16.967s, only four-tenths down on Tsunoda in third.
The field was compressed – 1.2s covered the top 18 runners, while Hulkenberg in ninth to Albon in 18th was little more than three-tenths.
A final hour of practice remains on Saturday, with conditions expected to be largely similar to those today – temperatures in the mid-20s with some cloud cover.
Free Practice 3 begins at 12:30 local time (20:30 AEST), with qualifying following at 16:00 local.
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