Lewis Hamilton topped the times once again in the second practice for this weekend\u2019s Austrian Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver was barely a tenth faster than the time set by his title rival Ferrari\u2019s Sebastian Vettel.<\/p>\n
Hamilton also bettered the time he had set during the morning by half a second. But the narrow gap between the two title drivers suggests that the fight this weekend could be close between the two teams. Hamilton\u2019s team-mate Valtteri Bottas was two tens of the pace.<\/p>\n
However, the Finn was lucky that he managed to keep it out of the barriers. But it wasn\u2019t plain sailing for both the Mercedes drivers. On Hamilton\u2019s first long run started well, but then it was interrupted after just five laps with a faulty spark plug on the\u00a0engine that the team only uses for Friday practice.<\/p>\n
When Hamilton returned to do his long runs he managed to put a series of laps in the sixty-eight-second mark. However, he did not return to track costing him laps, however, the laps he did complete suggested that he has the quicker car on both the short and long runs.<\/p>\n
The Red Bull\u2019s of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fourth and fifth respectively finishing ahead of the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. However, R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen didn\u2019t manage to set a really competitive lap in the session.<\/p>\n
There were signs once again of encouragement for McLaren and Honda, who have an upgraded power unit for this weekend. Fernando Alonso was eighth fastest, despite spinning late in the session and team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne twelfth.<\/p>\n
But a spin at Turn Five, damaging his floor forcing him to sit out the rest of the session. Kevin Magnussen was seventh ahead of the McLaren, a tenth faster than the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg and Romain Grosjean rounded out the top ten in the second Haas.<\/p>\n
There were others spinners as well with a number of drivers ran wide as they explored the limits of the cars on the slippery track.<\/p>\n
Despite Williams bringing upgrades this weekend, the Williams appeared to struggle and were outside the top ten. With Felipe Massa only managing fourteenth and Lance Stroll sixteenth.<\/p>\n
It was also a difficult session for Carlos Sainz who was fifteenth. The Spaniard damaged his car trying to re-join after he ran wide and across the grass. That damaged his floor which led to fluid dripping from his car ending his session.<\/p>\n
Things weren\u2019t getting better for Jolyon Palmer, the Renault drivers session was limited to seven laps because of another technical problem.<\/p>\n
The two Sauber\u2019s rounded out the times, with Pascal Wehrlein 0.088s faster than teammate Marcus Ericsson but a massive 3.299s off the pace of Hamilton’s best.<\/p>\n
RELATED<\/strong><\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton topped the times once again in the second practice for this weekend\u2019s Austrian Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver was barely a tenth faster than the time set by his title rival Ferrari\u2019s Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton also bettered the time he had set during the morning by half a second. But the narrow gap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[43,211,212,369,493,496,647,699,709,741,742,882,885,1068,1115,1130,1227,1283,1298,1369,1422,1495,1637,1639,1642,1643,1656,1707,1770,1773,1791,1811,1843,2025,2105,2149,2152],"class_list":["post-3940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-43","tag-austrian-gp","tag-austrian-grand-prix","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-daniil-kvyat","tag-esteban-ocon","tag-felipe-massa","tag-ferrari","tag-force-india","tag-force-india-mercedes","tag-haas","tag-haas-ferrari","tag-jolyon-palmer","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-lance-stroll","tag-marcus-ericsson","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes","tag-montreal","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-pascal-wehrlein","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-tag-heuer","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-red-bull-ring","tag-renault","tag-romain-grosjean","tag-sauber","tag-sauber-ferrari","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-serigo-perez","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-toro-rosso","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams","tag-williams-mercedes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n