Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg maintained his grip on the British Grand Prix timesheets in Friday’s second practice session, heading the closely-matched Ferrari duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel by three-tenths of a second, though once again the German’s session was not without trouble…
After his hydraulic problems this morning Rosberg was still suffering gearshift problems at times on his way to 1m 34.155s, and Mercedes were reprimanded by the stewards after covering his car when it was recovered from the track in FP1.
It remains to be seen whether Ferrari’s pace is genuine or still a matter of the low-fuel showboating about which boss Maurizio Arrivabene recently complained, but Raikkonen got within 0.347s of Rosberg with 1m 34.502s and Vettel was right behind him with 1m 34.522s.
Crowd favourite Lewis Hamilton had a subdued session for Mercedes. He set the initial pace with 1m 34.877s on the hard Pirelli, to team mate Rosberg’s 1m 35.229s, but failed to find much improvement on the medium and was only fourth with 1m 34.621s.
Red Bull continued to look good with Daniil Kvyat fifth on 1m 35.009s on the hard tyre and Daniel Ricciardo sixth on 1m 35.153s on the medium, as Max Verstappen kept Toro Rosso firmly in the top 10 with 1m 35.300s for seventh ahead of Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India on 1m 35.387s and team mate Carlos Sainz on 1m 35.866s.
Williams had trouble with overheating mediums as Felipe Massa took 10th on 1m 36.147s ahead of Pastor Maldonado on 1m 36.164s in the leading Lotus, Valtteri Bottas on 1m 36.183s in the second Williams and Sergio Perez for Force India on 1m 36.351s.
Romain Grosjean went off – and caused red flags to briefly fly – early on at Luffield in his Lotus while trying to make up for time lost to Jolyon Palmer in FP1, but recovered to set the 14th fastest time with 1m 36.728s ahead of McLaren’s Fernando Alonso on 1m 36.731s and Sauber’s Felipe Nasr on 1m 36.822s.
Alonso also went off-course and through the gravel at Luffield, while team mate Jenson Button – 17th on 1m 37.196s – complained that the second MP4-30 was bouncing badly. Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson recorded 1m 37.327s for 18th as Will Stevens continued to set Marussia’s pace with 1m 38.279s, comfortably ahead of the struggling Roberto Merhi on 1m 39.878s.
Merhi also brought out the reds – albeit very briefly – near the end after spinning at Luffield.