Barcelona FP2: Hamilton fastest with Red Bulls chasing

Hamilton's best lap time of 1:18:259 was good enough for top spot, but a little under a tenth down on Valtteri Bottas' best lap time in the morning session, suggesting that Mercedes have a very handy car around Circuit de Catalunya despite the fact that Bottas was only good for fifth fastest in the afternoon stanza.

The updated Red Bull showed handy pace which their drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen put to good use to claim second place and third respectively at the end of the 90-minutes session.

Also within sight of Hamilton's best lap time was Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, ending fourth fastest and three tenths shy of P1. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen was sixth fastest.

Notably, the top six were within half a second of one another, with an eight-tenths gap to the 'Best of the Rest' namely Romain Grosjean in seventh and Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen in eighth as the American team clearly have a good car for their drivers this weekend.

Stoffel Vandoorne was ninth, quicker of the two McLarens with teammate Fernando Alonso 12th and Force India's Sergio Perez rounding out the top ten.

Renault either have a problem with their car or they are keeping their powder dry until tomorrow. Whatever the case, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz were 13th and 17th respectively.

For a second session in a row, Williams were anchored to the bottom of the timing screens with Lance Stroll 19th and rookie Sergey Sirotkin slowest of all. The car 3.2 seconds off the pace over what is a relatively short lap...

Hamilton’s best lap, in a time of 1:18.259, came on the soft compound Pirelli tyres and was set early in the session. When the Briton later went for a qualifying simulation on the supersoft compound, a mistake at Turn 7 lost him time and his soft tyre time remained the benchmark.

It was a similar tale for Ricciardo. Despite limited running in the first session following a slide in the barriers that damaged the front left corner of his car in, the Australian quickly found a rhythm in the afternoon session and he joined Hamilton at the top end of the timesheet with a soft tyre best of 1:18.392.

But when he moved to supersofts his pace ebbed slightly and he found himself three tenths off his earlier time.

With other drivers struggling to get the best out of the red-banded tyre on qualifying sims, the soft compound times stood until the end of the session with Ricciardo 0.133s behind Hamilton and with Verstappen, who didf improve on the supersofts, marginally further back.

Sebastian Vettel, third in the opening session, also improved on supersofts, ton finish just five hundredths of a second behind Verstappen, while FP1’s quickest driver Valtteri Bottas finished in fourth place, two hundredths of a second further back. Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari finished in sixth place just over half a second adrift of Hamilton.

In the opening session it was McLaren who had taken best of the rest honours behind the top three teams, but in the afternoon Haas improved to end with Romain Grosjean seventh on a time of 1:19.579, over 1.3s behind Hamilton but just six hundredths of a second ahead of eighth-placed team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

McLaren’s decent start to the weekend was confirmed by Stoffel Vandoorne whose lap of 1:19.722 left him ninth, over two tenths of a second clear of Force India’s Sergio Pérez, whose session was brought to an early end, 13 minutes from time, after a pit stop left him with a loose front-left wheel.