Hockenheim, FP2: Hamilton moves ahead in second practice

Lewis Hamilton narrowly outpaced Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to take top spot in the second free practice for the German Grand Prix as track temperatures soared as high as 58 degrees Celsius at sweltering Hockenheim. Hamilton ended the session just two hundredths of a second ahead of Rosberg.

Daniel Ricciardo was third, just a tenth of a second behind Hamilton’s best time of 1:18.341, set on supersoft tyres. The Red Bull Racing driver set competitive times against the Mercedes drivers on both tyres and also on both short and long runs suggesting that here in Hockenheim, where the cars are for the first time running without the front-to-rear interconnected suspension systems, the agile RB10 might be a step closer to the dominant Mercedes W05 Hybrid.

Rosberg had run fastest in the morning session, beating Hamilton to top spot by just six hundredths of a second. It was a similar story in the afternoon on the supersoft tyres, but on the soft compound Rosberg was marginally faster, eclipsing Hamilton by three tenths of a second. Hamilton’s best time in the afternoon came on the option supersoft tyre.

In the morning session Ricciardo had finished fourth behind Fernando Alonso and half a second off Rosberg, but the Australian closed the gap in the afternoon.

Behind him, Kimi Raikkonen finished fourth for Ferrari, improving on his eighth place in the morning. Team-mate Alonso, though, went backwards in the afternoon.

In FP1 the Spaniard was just three tenths off the pace of Rosberg but in the second session his best lap saw him finish almost a full second adrift of Hamilton and down in ninth place.

After finishing fifth and seventh respectively in the morning session, McLaren’s Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen swapped places in the afternoon. Magnussen continued to make progress and claimed P5 by the end of running but Button failed to find the looked for improvement on the supersoft and finished seventh, behind Williams Felipe Massa. The Brazilian’s team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, took the final top-10 place.

It was a difficult afternoon for Caterham as both cars stopped on track. Kamui Kobayashi stopped after just 12 laps with flames pouring from the back of his car, while Marcus Ericsson stopped with an oil pressure problem after just three laps. The team managed to eventually get Ericsson going again in the final half hour of the session.