Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Rosberg hits back in FP2 as Ferrari faces fight

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.