Mercedes dominant in FP2 as Bottas edges Hamilton

Valtteri Bottas picked up in FP2 where he left off in the morning in Friday's afternoon practice at Sochi, the Mercedes driver edging teammate Lewis Hamilton by 0.267s.

However, the Black Arrows duo concluded its day with a comfortable margin over its rivals, with Renault's Daniel Ricciardo clocking in third over a second adrift from the day's pacesetters, just ahead of the McLaren duo of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

• Russian Grand Prix Free Practice 2 - Results

After FP1's spills and thrills - especially for Carlos Sainz and Nicholas Latifi - teams were looking for a less eventful afternoon work session in Sochi.

Sainz's off in the morning required a full change of the McLaren's rear crash structure, so it was a busy lunch break for the papaya squad.

When the track went green, Bottas lost no time putting himself ahead of the pack once again, going fastest at the outset on the hard tyre. But Hamilton, who was looking to improve on his meager morning P19 result, improved on his teammate's best effort, putting a 1m34.890s on the board on the medium rubber.

Mercedes then reverted to the soft compound which allowed both drivers to improve, but Hamilton locked up on his second flyer at Turn 13 while Bottas avoided any mistakes to reclaim the top spot, punching in a 1m33.519s.

The gap between the Black Arrows and Racing Point's Sergio Perez, their closest competitor at that stage, was a worrying - for the latter - 1.371s, signaling that catching the Mercedes pair could be a daunting task this weekend.

Ricciardo wasn't giving up however, the Aussie clocking in third mid-session but still well adrift from the Merc pacesetters.

Meanwhile, a push by Verstappen was ruined by a near 360-degree spin at Turn 2, confirming that the RB16 is currently a difficult proposition for its drivers at Sochi.

In the McLaren camp, Sainz and Norris were progressively dialing in the speed as their inclusion among the top 5 indicated.

With drivers switching to long runs in the final 30 minutes of the session, the front-runners had little to fear.

The session thus concluded with another dominant performance by Mercedes, with Ricciardo, Sainz and Norris completing the top five.

Racing Point's drivers had mixed results, with Perez clocking in P6 while Stroll was 17th. Performance were also varied among its rivals, with Red Bull's Verstappen concluding the day 7th while Albon was P12, confirming the team's struggles in Russia as foreseen by the Dutchman.

Ferrari's drivers were separated by a few tenths, with Leclerc lining up P8 while Vettel rounded off the top ten.

Down the field, Haas' Romain Grosjean brought up the rear, just behind Alfa's Giovinazzi.

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