Lewis Hamilton led team-mate Nico Rosberg during second practice for this weekend’s German GP. In FP1, it was Rosberg who held the advantage but it was a role reversal in the afternoon session.
Daniel Ricciardo put in a strong session for Red Bull, just 0.102 off the pace set by Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen also put behind some of the demons from the morning to go fourth fastest in his Ferrari ahead of McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen and the Williams of Felipe Massa. Then it was the second McLaren of Jenson Button down in seventh and Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull in eighth. Fernando Alonso and Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top ten.
It was a disappointing session for Caterham, after first Marcus Ericsson stopped between turns one and two, with a reported oil pressure problem. The car got back to the pits and the Swede managed to get his long runs in at the end of the session. Then team-mate Kamui Kobayashi’s car caught fire in the final sector and the Japanese drivers session came to a scorching end, in the already baking hot, German sun.
There was slight confusion down at Mercedes after Lewis Hamilton came in to change tyres during his long run, Rosberg came in also but was told to drive through and come in at the end of the next lap. By that stage he was already parked behind his team-mate and the team had to quickly get fans down to Rosberg’s front brakes as they began to overheat. Rosberg got his tyres changed and completed his final race run on the prime tyres.
On the long runs, it looked as though Mercedes could be challenged, by Red Bull. Vettel was one of the fastest on the long runs, consistently lapping the in the 1:22.1’s on the options, but did not look as strong on the harder compound.
But it was still Mercedes who led the way, as they have done, all season long.
