BARCELONA, Spain — Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix in an unusual session that featured mistakes from the top drivers on their fastest laps.
Hamilton finished the afternoon 0.133s ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, but both drivers made a mistake at Turn 7 on their hot laps on the super-soft tyres. As a result, both drivers’ fastest time was set on the soft compound – the second fastest on offer at the grand prix this weekend – and not the super-soft.
Max Verstappen secured third place, 0.274s off Hamilton, but also made a mistake at Turn 7 on his first run using the super-soft tyres. His next run on the same set was cleaner, making him the fastest driver on the super-soft tyre, but still far from the full potential of the compound.
Sebastian Vettel was fourth fastest in the Ferrari after finding a 0.4s improvement on the super-soft tyre, but he was still 0.326s off Hamilton by the end of the session. Valtteri Bottas looked set to match or better Hamilton’s time on his super-soft run but understeer in the final chicane meant he lost a significant amount of time and finished 0.352s off his teammate at the top of the timesheets. However, to give an indication of how much the top three teams were struggling on the super-soft, Bottas soft tyre lap remains the fastest of the day with a 1:18.148.
Kimi Raikkonen had a scrappy session, setting the sixth fastest time using the soft tyres after running through the gravel at Turn 4 on the super-softs. His day came toan early end when a puff of smoke came from the rear of his car on the run down to Turn 10 and he was forced to shut down the engine down and return to the pits.
The Haas drivers of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen were seventh and eighth fastest, despite Grosjean running wide at Turn 7 early in the session and beaching his car in the gravel. Fortunately for him, Haas was able to recover the car to the garage, which allowed him to get back out on track later in the session and set a time 0.064s faster than his teammate.
Stoffel Vandoorne was ninth fastest for McLaren ahead of Sergio Perez, who was forced to stop on track after his front left wheel came loose following a practice pit stop. The wheel of the Force India appeared to pop off the hub as he went round Turn 5 and he pulled up at the side of the track after limping through the next four corners at a significantly reduced pace.
Esteban Ocon was 11th fastest in the second Force India ahead of Fernando Alonso, whose fastest time was set on the medium compound tyre. Nico Hulkenberg was 13th fastest ahead of Pierre Gasly and the two Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc, who again performed well despite Leclerc finding the gravel at 4. Carlos Sainz was down in 17th at the end of the session ahead of Brendon Hartley and the two Williams cars of Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin.
http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/23471155/lewis-hamilton-edges-red-bull-drivers-second-practice
