Silverstone, FP2: Bottas continues to set the pace

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas maintained his grip on the top of the timesheets at Silverstone but he was pushed hard by team-mate Lewis Hamilton who finished under five hundredths of a second adrift of the Finn.

Bottas had topped the opening session by just seven hundredths of a second but his time of 1:29.106 was eclipsed early in the session as Hamilton quickly dipped into the 1m28s bracket on soft tyres. He then improved to time of 1:28.543 to sit six tenths ahead of the rest of the field.

Half an hour into the session Bottas bolted on supersoft tyres and once again rose to the top of the timesheet with a time of 1m28.496s.

Hamilton then also moved to the supersofts but an off-track excursion scuppered his chance of beating Bottas and the Finn’s time stood until the end of the session.

After a muted morning session for Ferrari in which its drivers finished fifth and sixth, the Italian squad bounced back in the afternoon with Kimi Raikkonen third-quickest. The Finn finished the session 0.332 behind Bottas but his progress wasn’t entirely smooth and late in the session he spun off into the gravel at Becketts. He was able to rejoin the circuit, however. Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile finished fourth, just over a tenth behind his team-mate and just under half a second behind Bottas.

Red Bull Racing were best of the rest, with Max Verstappen quickest for the Milton Keynes team. The Dutchman took fifth place, 0.602s off Bottas on supersofts, while teammate Daniel Ricciardo was sixth, nearly half a second down his team-mate on the same tyre. Verstappen was the last man inside a second of a Bottas’ time.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg took seventh place, 0.350s behind Ricciardo, while Felipe Massa was eighth for Williams.

After finishing eighth in the morning session using Honda’s ‘Spec 3’ engine, Fernando Alonso continued McLaren’s good start to the weekend by taking ninth place on the timesheet with a lap two tenths behind Massa. Esteban Ocon took the final top 10 place for Force India.