China, FP2: Hamilton doubles up in Shanghai

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace in practice for the Chinese Grand Prix, with the Mercedes driver following up his fastest lap of the morning session with the best time of the afternoon.

Hamilton posted a fastest lap 1:37.219 on the soft Pirelli tyre to finish four-tenths of a second clear of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, with Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo third.

Nico Rosberg, meanwhile, finished fifth behind Sebastian Vettel, 1.1 seconds behind his Mercedes team-mate after making a mistake on his soft tyre run.

However, while it was Hamilton who grabbed the lion’s share of the limelight with another dominant showing, it was Raikkonen who caught the eye. The Finn’s long-run pace was impressive and signaled that despite the clear advantage Mercedes enjoyed over the Scuderia in the qualifying sims, the champions may not have things all their own way in the race.

Rosberg’s slip allowed Daniel Ricciardo to step up and in a topsy turvy session for Red Bull, the Australian put a late entry to the session behind him to land the third fastest time of the session, a second behind Hamilton.

It was a trickier session for team-mate Daniil Kvyat, however. The Russian was forced out of the session by brake problem that eventually saw him trundle off track and into the barriers with complete brake failure as he attempted a slow crawl back to the pits. He finished the day in sixth place, however.

Valtteri Bottas took seventh place for Williams but it was a far more difficult afternoon for team-mate Felipe Massa. A problem with the rear wing of his car saw the Brazilian lose control of his Williams under braking as he approached the turn 14 hairpin and he slid off track and damaged the front wing of the car. He played no further part in the session.

Felipe Nasr was eighth fastest for Sauber ahead of Lotus’ Romain Grosjean. Jenson Button finished an excellent 10th for McLaren confirming the progress the team has made in recent weeks.

Another incident early in the session saw a spectator run across the main straight and cross into pit lane where he tried to enter the Ferrari garage. He was subsequently arrested by local police.