Silverstone, FP2: Hamilton quickest again as Rosberg is sidelined

After edging team-mate Nico Rosberg by just three hundredths of a second in opening practice for the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton made lighter work of the second session, taking top spot by almost four tenths of a second ahead of Daniel Ricciardo after Rosberg failed to take to the track due to car issues.

Rosberg pushed his chief championship rival hard in the morning session but his second 90 minutes of track was halted before it had begun, with Mercedes detecting a water leak in his car. The German did climb into his car again an hour into the session but when the engine was fired up another issue was found and he sat out the remainder of the session.

By contrast Hamilton’s session was smooth, with the defending champion setting his best time of 1:31.660 after 35 minutes, using the Soft compound Pirelli tyres. The time was marginally slower than his morning best of 1:31.654, set on the Medium tyre.

With Rosberg ruled out of the session, Ricciardo took second place 0.4s behind Hamilton, running the Briton closer than in the morning when Ricciardo was fifth and 1.1s behind the Mercedes driver.

The Australian’s team-mate Max Verstappen also made progress, finishing third after taking P7 in the FP1. The Dutch teenager’s time was almost a second quicker better than his best lap of the morning.

The Red Bull driver took third almost three tenths of a second clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who repeated his FP1 slot of fourth, nine tenths off Hamilton’s pace. The four-time champion’s team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, ended the session in fifth, 0.166s ahead of the lead McLaren-Honda of Fernando Alonso.

After a quiet start to the weekend for Williams, with 12th and 13th positions respectively for Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa in FP1, the team improved in the afternoon with Bottas seventh and Massa 10th. Behind Bottas in eighth was Haas’ Romain Grosjean’s Haas with Jenson Button in the second McLaren ninth, though the Briton was seventh tenths of a second down on team-mate Alonso.