Melbourne, FP2: Hamilton on top again as Rosberg crashes out

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace in practice for the Australian Grand Prix as team-mate Nico Rosberg crashed out of the second session at Albert Park.

After a wet start to the new Formula One season in FP1, the second session was also disrupted by train and Hamilton’s best time of 1:38.841 came on the green-banded intermediate Pirelli compound.

The lap was good enough to shade Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg by almost half a second, with Kimi Räikkönen improving from a difficult first session in which he suffered a spin to claim third place with a lap of 1:39.486.

The wet conditions caught out Nico Rosberg, however. Approximately half an hour into the session, the 2015 Drivers’ Championship runner-up lost control of his Mercedes and spun in Turn 6. He clipped the wall with the nose of his Mercedes breaking the car’s front wing. He attempted to limp back to the pits but was soon told to stop by his team as a result of debris falling off his car. he parked in the final sector and his session was over after just four laps.

Rosberg won’t be too disadvantaged by the lack of running, as with the conditions proving tricky, there was patchwork running across the next hour and just drivers hit double figures in terms of laps.

One of those was Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard had endured a tough first session as he stopped early in the opening session and completed just three laps. In the late afternoon he was more successful, posting 16 laps and working his way to fifth spot on the timesheet, just behind Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.

Fernando Alonso was sixth for McLaren ahead of team-mate Jenson Button. After turning just eight untimed laps in the morning, Sebastian Vettel did set a time in the second session, recording a lap of 1:40.761 to take P8 in the session.

Sergio Perez was ninth fastest ahead of the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat.

Elsewhere Manor was by far the busiest team, with Pascal Wehrlein completing 25 laps and fellow rookie Rio Haryanto lapping 22 times.