A combined total of just 60 laps across the entire field were recorded, an average of three per driver, versus 382 from the opening practice session of the day.

Oscar Piastri was fastest at the chequered flag, though it was a meaningless accomplishment given the lack of running.

Lewis Hamilton was second and Charles Leclerc third, more than four seconds off the pace to offer an indication of how unrepresentative proceedings had been.

Rain before the session began prompted most to remain in the garage as the green light went on at pit exit.

With conditions expected to improve for the balance of the weekend, there was little incentive for teams to risk heading out.

Lewis Hamilton finally broke the silence, to the cheer of the crowd, when he peeled out of the garage after 15 minutes.

Aside from a few damp patches, the circuit was dry, with Hamilton reporting as much back to his team.

Nonetheless, he completed an out lap and started a second before returning to the pit lane just as rain began to fall again.

Daniel Ricciardo had headed out as Hamilton returned to the lane with the Australian touring slowing back to the pits in what was his first lap of the weekend.

The rain only intensified once Ricciardo was back in the shed, but again, it was fleeting. The cool conditions and cloud cover meant the racing surface was not drying quickly, and even as it did, it was regularly doused by light rain once more.

When Oscar Piastri headed out with 33 minutes remaining his McLaren trailed spray from his intermediate tyres.

He completed nothing more than a sighting lap, entering the lane as Zhou Guanyu exited it. The Sauber driver was joined on track by team-mate Valtteri Bottas and both RBs.

Zhou and Bottas pitted at the end of the lap while Tsunoda became the first driver to record a lap – a 1:42.304s.

The circuit was in a strange state: too wet for slick tyres but too dry for the intermediates.

Both RB drivers carried on regardless, Tsunoda improving to a 1:40.946s, just over 10 seconds off the lap set by Max Verstappen to top Free Practice 1.

When Tsunoda and Ricciardo pitted with 21 minutes remaining, the circuit fell silent once more.

The weather was bad news for Ricciardo, who’d sat out opening practice and was therefore already playing catch up.

Conversely, it was good news for Sargeant, who was poised to sit out Free Practice 2 after crashing his Williams earlier in the day.

While he wouldn’t get any laps whatever happened, the rain essentially put everyone else in the same boat and covered his blushes to an extent.

In the final minutes, Alex Albon offered a glimmer of hope when he suggested to his team that the track was ready for slicks.

The Williams driver even had a set of soft tyres bolted on to his car, though he only headed out of the pit lane in order to complete a practice start.

Piastri agreed with Albon’s assessment and took to the circuit, going fastest of anyone through the middle third of the lap—the area that had been driest throughout the session.

That saw the Australian fastest of the three drivers on a 1:39.105s, pushing on to lower that to a 1:36.862s next time around.

When the chequered flag fell, the Australian had improved to 1:34.725s in what was a frustrating hour of practice.

A final hour of practice remains for drivers and teams, with conditions for Saturday’s Free Practice 3 forecast to be markedly better than were seen in Practice 2.