Barcelona Practice 2: Hamilton on top as Vettel struggles

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace in Barcelona repeating his time-sheet topping performance of the morning in the day’s second session.

Mercedes ended the day with top two times as Nico Rosberg joined his team-mate at the top of the order, the German making up for lost time after his opening session was interrupted by power unit problems. He finished just under half a second adrift of Hamilton, who set a best lap of 1:25.524.

Third place went to Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian finishing just under a second behind Rosberg, but over half a second up on fourth-place Fernando Alonso.

Ricciardo was the only Red Bull running in the afternoon, however. After being restricted to just four laps in the morning with an electrical problem, the Austrian team failed to repair the damage caused in the afternoon and the champion was forced to sit out the whole session.

Alonso, meanwhile, was less than 0.2s ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who finished the second in fifth place. The twin Ferrari’s were followed by the McLarens of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button respectively.

Felipe Massa was eighth for Williams and was followed by the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado. The Lotus driver had a good afternoon completing 42 laps but it was a more tricky outing for team-mate Romain Grosjean.

The Frenchman suffered with engine woes and brake issues, the latter forcing him to abandon the session after 26 laps.

Elsewhere, there was a worrying moment for Jean-Eric Vergne late in the session. The Toro Rosso driver came out of the pit only for the right-rear wheel of his STR9 to detach and he was to stop at Turn 2. (Reuters)

Subbed by AJN.

Spanish Grand Prix, Free Practice 2 – Friday, 9 May 2014