Singapore, FP2: Rosberg recovers to lead at Marina Bay

After crashing out of the first practice session in Singapore, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg recovered to post the quickest time of the second 90-minute session. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was forced out of the session with a hydraulics problem.

In the opening session both Mercedes drivers had sampled the ultrasoft tyres early on and went on to set their fastest laps on the soft tyre, before Rosberg crashed out with 15 minutes remaining in the session. However in his repaired Mercedes Rosberg fared better on the purple-banded Pirelli rubber in the late evening. The German settled into P1 with a lap of 1:44.152 and wasn’t headed for the remainder of the outing.

Hamilton, though, managed just 10 laps in the sister Mercedes before his session was halted with 20 minutes left on the clock. He was called back to the pit lane for a hydraulic issue to be investigated and the champion then failed to rejoin the action. He finished seventh on the time sheet.
After finishing 1-2 in the opening practice session the Red Bull Racing pairing of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo slipped back in FP2, with Verstappen finishing in third place with a lap of 1:44.532 just under 0.4s adrift of Rosberg’s time. Ricciardo was fourth fastest, two hundredths of a second behind his Dutch team-mate. Both drivers encountered traffic on their ultrasoft runs and Ricciardo had a lucky escape early in the session when he spun at Turn 11 after clipping the wall. He managed to keep his car out of the barriers though.

The top five order was rounded out by Sebastian Vettel. The German had finished just behind the Red Bulls in FP1 but this time he was a second behind Rosberg.

Nico Hulkenberg was sixth for Force India ahead of Hamilton, with Carlos Sainz eighth to give Toro Rosso hope of a good weekend after finishing seventh in the early evening. Team-mate Daniil Kvyat finished 10th behind Fernando Alonso.

Alonso’s outing wasn’t completely smooth, however, and he was forced to end running after 30 laps with a gearbox issue.