Hamilton quickest as Vettel hits trouble in FP2

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Lewis Hamilton was comfortably fastest as Ferrari suffered more reliability woes during second practice for the Russian Grand Prix.

With Ferrari not running the supersoft tyre in FP1, there were positive signs when Sebastian Vettel went fastest on the softest compound tyre relatively early in the session. However, with just 10 laps to his name, Vettel pulled over to the side of the track on the exit of the final corner. Reporting an electronics problem, Vettel's session was over early as he missed out on significant running.

After Vettel stopped, Hamilton finally put a lap together on the supersoft tyre to go over 0.6s clear at the top of the times. Hamilton had spun during FP1 and did so again in the second session, losing the rear at Turn 4 and flat-spotting his tyres.

Vettel remained second fastest in terms of headline lap times, with Nico Rosberg over 0.2s further back having failed to get in a clean lap on the supersoft tyres. Despite struggling for a representative time, Rosberg was still 0.3s faster than Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari.

It was an encouraging start to the weekend for Mercedes, with the team confirming it had spent two development tokens on its fuel system ahead of the race weekend.

Daniel Ricciardo edged out Valtteri Bottas by 0.1s as Red Bull and Williams again looked closely matched, while McLaren managed to get both cars in to the top ten - with Jenson Button eighth and Fernando Alonso tenth - although Alonso was nearly two seconds slower than Hamilton.

After a number of drivers spun in FP1, only Romain Grosjean and the two Manor drivers joined Hamilton in swapping ends in the second session as the track remained low on grip. Grosjean complained of the same handling issues he faced in China, with the two Haas cars down in 16th and 17th respectively.

The session ended under yellow flags with Pascal Wehrlein pulling off the track at Turn 14, reporting a loss of power in his Manor.

AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix - FP2

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.583	30
02	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:38.235	10
03	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.450	37
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:38.793	35
05	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:39.084	34
06	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:39.185	42
07	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:39.193	32
08	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:39.196	31
09	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:39.289	38
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:39.400	30
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:39.465	37
12	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:39.501	30
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:39.795	31
14	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:39.867	38
15	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:40.193	41
16	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:40.260	24
17	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:40.508	26
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:40.688	37
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:40.740	31
20	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:41.080	38
21	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:41.148	23
22	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:41.652	29

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.