Image courtesy of Mercedes AMG
Nico Rosberg continued his form into Friday afternoon, beating his team mate Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second in the second free practice session of the weekend.
The German, who lost out to Hamilton in the championship fight at the last race of 2014, laid down a marker of 1:27.697 after a run on the soft tyres, a time which ultimately would not be beaten.
Overall, FP2 was a reasonably quiet session, with the only major dramas coming from Kevin Magnussen and Marcus Ericsson.
Magnussen, who is deputising for the injured Fernando Alonso this weekend, carried too much speed into turn six while on an early run, and ran straight on into the barriers, bringing out the only red flag of the day.
Meanwhile, Ericsson suffered a broken suspension while riding the kerbs out of the final corner, meaning the Swede had to complete a full lap before being able to pit his Sauber.
Aside from Magnussen and Ericsson, rookie driver Carlos Sainz had a brief spin at turn 15 with about half an hour to go, and was able to rejoin the track without causing too much trouble.
Ferrari look to be in a much better place than this time last year, with Vettel and Raikkonen going third and fourth fastest respectively, with Bottas underlining the pace of the Williams with the fifth fastest time.
The sole Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat ended the session sixth fastest, albeit 2.3 seconds off the pace of the Mercedes of Rosberg, while team mate Daniel Ricciardo did not run due to an engine change.
Carlos Sainz, despite his spin, continued to show some decent pace, going fourth fastest in the morning, and seventh fastest in the afternoon.
Both Lotus drivers managed to make it into the top ten, clarifying their much-improved pace after switching from Renault to Mercedes power, while Nico Hulkenberg of Force India rounded out the top ten.
The troubled Sauber team, controversially, managed to run both of their cars in the afternoon, with Felipe Nasr going 11th fastest and Ericsson 15th before his suspension failure.
Sergio Perez had a quiet afternoon, and ended up placing his Force India 12th fastest. McLaren’s torrid time continued, as a loss of power for Jenson Button only compounded their problems further, after Magnussen’s crash early on in the session.
The McLaren drivers ended the session 13th and 16th fastest, while Max Verstappen finished in 15th.
The third and final free practice session will get underway tomorrow at 2pm local time.
