F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Hamilton leads Rosberg by just 0.079s in FP2

Lewis Hamilton maintained his place at the top of the standings in second practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, leading Nico Rosberg by 0.079s.

Having been quickest during the opening session of the title showdown at the Yas Marina Circuit, Hamilton set the pace on the ultrasoft tyre on Friday evening, posting a 1:40.861. Rosberg had failed to improve on his soft tyre lap in first practice - leading to a gap of over 0.3s between the two championship contenders - but he hit back in FP2 to post a 1:40.940.

AS IT HAPPENED: 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - FP2

Sebastian Vettel was third quickest for Ferrari with an impressive lap of 1:41.130. Just a quarter of a second off Hamilton's pace, Vettel suggested the title rivals could have two teams to worry about after Red Bull was the nearest challenger in the opening session. However, the German's session ended early has he was forced to stop between turns 18 and 19 below the Yas Viceroy hotel with a suspected gearbox failure.

Max Verstappen was fourth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, with the two Red Bull drivers separated by just 0.001s, but over half a second slower than Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen was less than 0.1s further back in sixth place, and the Finn was also the last driver within a second of the Mercedes pace.

Track conditions were much more representative for all the teams in FP2, which started at 1700 - the same time as both qualifying and the race - and continued through sunset and finished in darkness.

Valtteri Bottas was seventh for Williams, less than 0.1s clear of Sergio Perez in the Force India, with Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa rounding out the top ten ahead of the McLaren pair of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. Having missed out on a lot of running in FP1, Button was again slow out of the blocks in FP2 but recovered to complete 24 laps.

The bottom 12 cars were all in team order save for Jolyon Palmer in 15th and Kevin Magnussen in 20th place, some 0.7s apart. The two Toro Rosso drivers ended the session at the bottom of the times following concerns regarding their cars, with Daniil Kvyat suffering his second left rear puncture of the day.

The first failure saw Kvyat complete just four laps and he managed the same in FP2 as another puncture saw the Russian spin off at high speed at Turn 16. While lucky to not hit the barrier, Kvyat limped back to the pits and didn't run again as FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer inspected the car, with Carlos Sainz also stopping running after just five laps.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:40.861	36
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:40.940	38
03	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:41.130	31
04	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:41.389	24
05	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:41.390	33
06	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:41.464	34
07	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:41.959	35
08	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:42.041	35
09	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:42.264	36
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:42.268	36
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:42.366	33
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:42.823	24
13	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:43.012	35
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:43.108	17
15	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:43.272	33
16	Esteban Ocon	Manor	1:43.600	35
17	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:43.754	33
18	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:43.903	36
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:44.045	34
20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:44.117	25
21	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:44.478	5
22	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:45.948	4

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.