With Vandoorne missing the chance to get a quick lap in before the session was red flagged, it was Vergne and Mortara who showed the best pace in FP2.
Free Practice 2 went ahead as scheduled, though not without a few hiccups.
The session ended prematurely when Nick Cassidy came to a halt just after the finish line due to a technical issue, causing a red flag. However, the yellow flag brought out by Alexander Sims hitting the barrier in Turn 19 five minutes earlier meant that many drivers did not get an opportunity to get a quick lap ahead of Qualifying – which is still threatened by an approaching storm.
Should Qualifying be cancelled due to heavy rain, Jean-Eric Vergne would be the man on pole for the first race of the weekend, with his 1:21.233s being the best time around the Seoul circuit so far. The top 3 were all enclosed within 0.038s, Edoardo Mortara again second on the timing sheet – this time followed by Pascal Wehrlein.
Both Venturi drivers replicated their FP1 results, Lucas Di Grassi in P4 four tenths away from Vergne’s time. Oliver Askew and Nick Cassidy rounded up the top 6, while Oliver Turvey’s Nio 333 made an appearance in the top 10 in P7 ahead of Dragon/Penske Sergio Sette Camara.
Due to a combination of bad timing and driver error, neither Stoffel Vandoorne nor Mitch Evans – down in P16 and P12 respectively – could make it to the top 10, the last two spots going to Vergne’s teammate Antonio Felix Da Costa and Andretti’s Jake Dennis.
Vandoorne’s teammate Nyck de Vries – who also didn’t get the chance to go for another run before the yellow flag – finished the session even further down, a second off the pace in P19.
With the skies above the circuit foreboding more rain – which earlier this week had caused floods and power outputs in Seoul – weather could be the main decider in the formation of the grid ahead of Round 15.
