Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Rosberg heads Hamilton and Button in FP2

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Nico Rosberg was again quickest in second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix as McLaren showed encouraging pace.

With Mercedes having been over 1.8s clear of the field in the opening session, the gap remained over a second as Rosberg's time of 1:31.001 on the supersoft tyre saw him a quarter of a second clear of team-mate Lewis Hamilton and nearly 1.3s ahead of Jenson Button in third place.

Not only was Ferrari limited to fifth and sixth quickest behind Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso, Sebastian Vettel also lost out on some running as he was forced to stop on track. The German complained of a lack of power and pulled off at Turn 8, and when he inspected the car Vettel found the left rear tyre was not properly attached.

Vettel was 0.2s slower than team-mate Kimi Raikkonen during the session, but did make a mistake on his supersoft tyre lap which cost him the opportunity to improve his time, meaning his best lap was set on the softs.

Another Ferrari-powered team also found itself in trouble late in the session as Romain Grosjean suffered two problems in the Haas. Grosjean ran out on to the kerb exiting Turn 12 and his front wing appeared to fail, dropping at the front of the car and leaving some debris on the circuit. Haas also suffered a front wing failure on the first day of pre-season testing.

Grosjean was able to return to the pits and take on a new wing but his next run saw him forced to pit after smoke started emerging from the rear of his car exiting Turn 13.

With Button and Verstappen both in the top four, Red Bull and Williams both featured in the top ten in what was another close session Verstappen in fourth place was exactly one second faster than 15th-placed Sergio Perez.

Stoffel Vandoorne enjoyed a trouble-free second session and was 11th quickest in the second McLaren, 0.7s slower than team-mate Button. FP2 also saw encouraging signs for Manor with Pascal Wehrlein in 19th - ahead of both Saubers - and just 0.3s adrift of Jolyon Palmer's Renault despite not running the supersoft tyre.

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix FP2

FP1 REPORT: Rosberg fastest as Mercedes sets blistering pace

Romain Grosjean's exclusive F1i column - Bahrain

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:31.001	38
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:31.242	32
03	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:32.281	32
04	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:32.406	31
05	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:32.452	38
06	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:32.650	26
07	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:32.703	34
08	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:32.792	39
09	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:32.870	23
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:32.873	36
11	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	1:32.999	30
12	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:33.129	31
13	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:33.177	36
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:33.384	23
15	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:33.406	35
16	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:33.447	34
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:33.570	37
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:33.640	35
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:33.953	21
20	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:34.224	31
21	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:34.477	34
22	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:34.562	33

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.