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Hamilton keeps the lead in Baku

Lewis Hamilton kept the lead in the second free-practice session of the day ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg and Sergio Perez.


Haas F1 Team cars were out first after track reparations. Daniel Ricciardo was also able to head out on track after his shunt in FP1. Sebastian Vettel and Esteban Gutierrez were the first ones to go wide in turn 3 in the session, both had already made the same mistake this morning.

The two Force India cars managed to make the exact same time before being outplaced by Carlos Sainz Jr. Lewis Hamilton managed to go faster than in the morning with a 1:45.102, 0.778s faster than his teammate Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso P3 15 minutes into the session. Despite not discovering the track this time, many drivers went at the limit and often went wide or cut the chicanes.

With one hour left on the clock, Rosberg was leading from Hamilton and Bottas, Sainz and Alonso. Around mid-session, Marcus Ericsson who faced technical issues in the early stages of the session, managed to head out on track while Hamilton took back the fastest lap from Rosberg.

The second half of the session was not as crowded as usual with only 1/3 of the field on track. After a fuel pump issue, Fernando Alonso was able to rejoin the track. With thirty minutes to go, only five drivers were in the pits. With twenty minutes to go, Rosberg stopped his car on track following an engine issue. The virtual safety car was therefore deployed to retrieve the car. Fifteen minutes later, Kimi Raikkonen blocked his rear tyres blocking him in the run-off area following a MGU-K problem, ending his session and bringing a virtual safety car for less than one minute. Sebastian Vettel was also asked to come back in the pits slowly in the last minute of the session.

Lewis Hamilton finished the session on top with a 1:44.223, Nico Rosberg was 0.690s slower than his teammate. Perez, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Sainz, Verstappen, Vettel, Button and Ricciardo completed the top 10.