Sochi FP2: Hamilton and Mercedes show their hand

Hamilton's best lap of 1:33.385 was a couple of tenths faster tan Valtteri Bottas' best effort which was good enough for second place on the time sheets.

Red Bulls also showed handy post with Max Verstappen third fastest albeit half a second down on the top time. Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest, a couple of hundredths shy of his teammate.

Ferrari, whose Sebastian Vettel topped the morning session, went AWOL in the afternoon with the German fifth fastest, but a full second down on the benchmark time. In the sister car, Kimi Raikkonen was sixth, four tenths off his teammate.

Sergio Perez, seventh fastest, was Best of the Rest in the Force India which appears to works well around the Autodrom. Esteban Ocon was ninth on the timesheets, but only a couple of hundredths off Mexican.

Incredibly. splitting them was Pierre Gasly in the Toro Rosso with the eighth best time only a thousandth of a second off Perez.

Sauber's Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top ten.

Notably, the difference between Hamilton's best lap time and Perez (Best of the Rest) was 1.7 seconds in the session, while less than a second separated Perez and the next nine cars!