Spanish Grand Prix – Lewis Hamilton topped an error-filled second practice session ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Mercedes driver finished the qualifying simulations as the fastest on track, but an error at turn seven on his super soft tyre run prevented further improvements.
However, his earlier effort of a 1:18.259 on the soft tyre was enough to maintain top spot, over one tenth of a second faster than Red Bull’s Ricciardo, who also failed to improve on the super soft tyre.
The second Red Bull of Verstappen, however, did improve his lap time, but he was unable to get within one-quarter of a second of Hamilton’s time.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was fourth fastest with his super soft tyre lap, ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, who also used the fastest available compound.
Kimi Raikkonen finished FP2 in sixth, but his session ended early thanks to a power unit problem. He failed to complete many laps on the heavier fuel loads.
The Haas pairing of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen finished in seventh and eighth, appearing to have strong pace this weekend.
Despite this, Grosjean struggled to keep his car on the track; he ran off-track twice in FP1 and beached his car in the gravel trap a few minutes into the second free practice session. This brought out an early virtual safety car.
A virtual safety car was also used later in the session when Force India’s Sergio Perez was forced to pull over after a wheel detachment. Worryingly, like many wheel detachments this season, it was only identified half-way around the lap.
To view the full results of the session, click here.
