GERMAN GP – Rosberg tops second practice by just over a second from Hamilton
Nico Rosberg picked up where he left of during the morning session to once again go faster than Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during the second practice session for the German Grand Prix.
Rosberg lead Hamilton by 1.2 second early on when the pair were on the soft tyre but Hamilton closed down his advantage when he switched to the supersoft tyres. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third fastest but the Italian team were well of the silver arrows.
However, the German was two tenths faster than Red bull’s Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo a further second behind in fifth place. Red Bull look close to the silver arrows on their race runs.
Hamilton set the pace early on using the soft tyre but when he tried to do his supersoft lap was a bit scrappy, with a big lock-up going into the hairpin, and he couldn’t get on terms with Rosberg. Kimi Raikkonen was sixth fastest ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg.
McLaren’s jenson Button was eight with birthday boy Fernando Alonso tenth with the teams former driver Sergio Perez in between the two. Button was forced to sit out the last twenty minutes of the session after he complained of an eye irritation.
After initially visiting the circuit’s medical centre, the Briton has headed to the local Mannheim hospital for a precautionary check-up.
Behind Button the times down to seventeenth were within a second of each other. Vettel proved that a key factor going into Sunday’s race will be tyre wear on his long runs.
He told his team “I’m wasting my time here. What do you want me to do?” Asked whether he wanted the front wing flap adjusted, he snapped back that he was doing it all by himself as his crew had not apparently noticed he was running in traffic the whole time.
Toro Rosso’ Carlos Sainz was eleventh fastest twenty five thousandths of a second ahead of his team-mate Daniil Kyvat. William’s Valtteri Bottas was thirteenth.
Haas’s Romain Grosjean had the same problems under braking as he was in the morning session and had both an off and a spin at the Turn 6 hairpin on his way to fourteenth.
There were a few close moments including Ricciardo passing Rio Haryanto’s just as Hamilton exited the pits. There was a similarly tight moment at Turn 8 too as Raikkonen ran Felipe Massa’s Williams wide at Turn 8 after a passing attempt in the hairpin had been rebuffed.
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