Lewis Hamilton tops the second free practice session at Silverstone whilst a mechanical problem meant his teammate couldn’t get out of the pits all session. The Red Bull drivers completed the top three, with Daniel Ricciardo beating his young teammate.
Hamilton set a time of 1m31.660s, just 0.391 seconds faster than the Red Bull driver.
Early in the session, it was a water leak that was stopping Nico Rosberg from getting out onto the track after he was beaten by his teammate in FP1. Twenty minutes into the session the engine was going and Rosberg was ready to make up for lost time. The German never made it onto the track, though, as another problem was spotted and Rosberg was withdrawn from the session.
Further down the pit lane, McLaren were having a mixed session. Halfway through, Jenson Button had only set a handful of laps when a problem with his throttle application and response was spotted on the date. Fernando Alonso, though, was running sixth and only 1.3 seconds behind Hamilton.
McLaren used up two engine tokens before coming to Silverstone and have brought with them a selection of aero upgrades, both of which seemed to be working for them on the British track.
Button managed to get out on track with about half an hour of the session left, but it didn’t look like all his problems had been solved when he was forced to go slowly to nurse his car back to the pits. After a quick fix, Button was back on track, only to report more problems.
The Brit was able to set a competitive lap time by the end of the session, 0.720 seconds slower than his teammate, who finished the session 6th.
When the practice race stints began, the Red Bull duo’s pace gave hope for an interesting race this weekend. Having already set practice qualifying times just behind Hamilton, the pair were both lapping faster than the Mercedes driver in their longer runs.
Russian Daniil Kvyat was having an eventful session. Whilst the driver’s from his old team were taking the “best of the rest” glory, he was struggling with the Toro Rosso car. The Russian said over the radio that the car was hard to drive and he frequently found himself off of the road. He finished the session with a time of 1m34.139s, 0.399 seconds slower than his younger teammate.
