Nico Rosberg was quickest in second practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as Ferrari was challenged by Force India and Red Bull.

After Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the opening practice session, Rosberg responded with the quickest time of FP2 by posting a 1:41.983, leaving him 0.138s clear of his Mercedes team-mate. While Kimi Raikkonen had been the closest challenger to Mercedes in FP1, Sergio Perez set an impressive time for Force India to go third on a 1:42.610.

Perez was aided by Force India opting to run the supersoft tyre later in the session than Ferrari, but with FP2 the only representative session - starting at the same time as qualifying and the race - it was an encouraging result for the team which has already secured fifth in the constructors' championship.

Fourth fastest was Daniel Ricciardo for Red Bull ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Daniil Kvyat and Raikkonen in seventh. The five cars behind the Mercedes pair were covered by 0.239s, with Nico Hulkenberg in eighth place and Fernando Alonso in ninth 0.1s further back.

Alonso's lap time was encouraging for McLaren, leaving him within a second of Rosberg's fastest time. Team-mate Jenson Button was two seconds off the pace, however, leaving him down in 16th place. There was also more than a second between the Sauber drivers in 17th and 18th, with Marcus Ericsson slower than Felipe Nasr having not set a quicker time on the supersoft tyre.

While the end result saw it dropping back compared to its positions in FP1, Ferrari opted to run earlier on the supersoft tyre in order to focus on its race pace. The teams only having FP2 to set the cars up for the race in similar conditions to Sunday as the final hour-long practice session will take place in higher temperatures early in the afternoon.

One driver to miss out on some of that running was Carlos Sainz who stopped at the hairpin with half an hour remaining, limiting him to a total of 20 laps. Perez also appeared to suffer an issue as he was seen crawling back to the pits with 20 minutes to run and didn't return to the track.

AS IT HAPPENED: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix FP2

Eric Silbermann's Abu Dhabi grumpy preview

Chris Medland's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix preview

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Pos Driver Team Time Laps
01 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:41.983 39
02 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:42.121 31
03 Sergio Perez Force India 1:42.610 23
04 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:42.647 37
05 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:42.717 35
06 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:42.798 34
07 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:42.849 36
08 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:42.928 35
09 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:42.955 31
10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:43.431 37
11 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:43.441 32
12 Felipe Massa Williams 1:43.506 33
13 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:43.662 40
14 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:43.854 20
15 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:43.929 27
16 Jenson Button McLaren 1:44.050 32
17 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:44.116 37
18 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:45.245 28
19 Will Stevens Manor 1:46.450 35
20 Roberto Merhi Manor 1:47.022 27
Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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