Barcelona FP2: Hamilton back in charge

Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Spanish Grand Prix practice on Friday while Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg fell foul of the stewards with his first reprimand of the season and ended the day over three quarters of a second down on the reinging world champion.

While Rosberg set the fastest lap of the day in the morning session, with a lap of one minute 26.828 seconds, Hamilton was comfortably quicker in the afternoon sunshine at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Briton's time of 1:26.852 compared to Rosberg's 1:27.616, although the German had gearchange problems, as the sport fired up for its first European weekend of the season.

Rosberg was summoned to the stewards, including former world champion Alan Jones, after first practice for a pitlane infringement.

Force India's Mexican Sergio Perez was then fined 1,000 euros ($1,123.80) for speeding in the pit lane during the second practice.

Hamilton, last year's winner in Spain, has won three of four races this season and started all on pole. He leads Rosberg by 27 points.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was third and second fastest in the sessions, but still some way off the Mercedes pace, with team mate Kimi Raikkonen fourth in both.

Toro Rosso's rookie pairing of Carlos Sainz, making his home debut, and Max Verstappen were in the top 10 in both sessions but Red Bull had a difficult day.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo was sidelined for much of the two sessions while the team worked on his car's engine.

Ricciardo, who is already on his fourth engine for the season out of an allocation of four, ended up ninth and 13th.

Frenchman Romain Grosjean brought out red flags when the engine cover of his Lotus blew off and shattered into pieces on the pit straight.

After a typically low key morning, Williams continued their steady work with Valtteri Bottas in eighth place and Felipe Massa tenth. Ninth place went to the second Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz.

After extensive repairs, Grosjean managed to return to the fray in the final 20 minutes of the session, on medium tyres, and his performance run jumped him to P12 ahead of Ricciardo.

Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado was 14th ahead of the Saubers of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson. Then came Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, though Hulkenberg was told later in the session that the team’s pace on the hard tyre was better than Sauber’s.

The field was backed up by the Manor cars of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi.

[highlight ]Spanish Grand Prix, Free Practice 2 - Friday, 8 May 2015[/highlight]