Mercedes maintained their advantage over the rest of the field with Lewis Hamilton setting the quickest time of the weekend so far.
Hamilton was the first man to break into the 1:09s and on his second lap on the super-soft tyres, he set a 1:09.542 – three tenths clear of teammate Nico Rosberg.
Fernando Alonso set the third fastest time albeit one second off Hamilton whilst teammate Kimi Raikkonen was down in eleventh indicating the Finn is still struggling to adapt to the F14-T.
Marcus Ericsson was the first driver out on track as he suffered an electric issue which forced him to stop on track in the first practice session. Similarly, Adrian Sutil made up for lost ground making early progress in his Sauber.
Many drivers have struggled with locking-up at turn one and turn two indicating the troubles which the drivers will face come race day.
The Williams’ showed that they had the pace to compete for the podium once again with Bottas in fourth ahead of teammate Massa in fifth.
After his 720 degree spin in FP1, Sebastian Vettel set the sixth quickest time with teammate Ricciardo in eighth. This weekend is Red Bull’s home race so will be hoping that there is an improvement of speed overnight.
Force India struggled for qualifying pace however once again both Perez and Hulkenburg looked more conformable on heavier fuel. Once again, Chilton was ahead of Sutil showing that Marussia have continued to find more speed with further upgrades.
Rain threatened the latter stages of the session when all the teams were testing the level of degradation of the tyres ahead of Sunday’s race.
