Ferrari hold the advantage after the Friday practice sessions for the Russian Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time of the second free practice session on Friday afternoon in Sochi with a best time of 1:34.120 on the ultra soft tyres. Second fastest of the afternoon was Kimi Raikkonen 0.263s off Vettel’s time with a 1:34.383.
The Ferrari’s looked comfortable around the Sochi Autodrom on one lap pace as well as their long runs. The team enjoyed trouble free running and look good on long run pace as well.
Third fastest was Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in 4th. Both Mercedes looked rather scrappy on track attempting their flying laps. Hamilton had abandoned three of his flying laps on the ultra soft tyres after running wide and out braking himself a number of times. Both drivers eventually got their times in but it was well off the pace we are used to seeing on the Mercedes. If they are, this is a rather exaggerated show of sandbagging. We expect the silver arrows to blast ahead come qualifying.
Finishing 5th and 6th for Red Bull was Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo. Verstappen was forced to abandon his session after a fuel pressure issue. Red Bull don’t seem to be attacking this weekend and seem content where they are at the moment until their major upgrade comes in Spain.
Felipe Massa ended his session 7th fastest just over 2s off Vettel’s time.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg finished 8th fastest ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magussen in 9th.
Rounding out the top 10 was Sergio Perez in the Force India.
Ferrari looked strong on their long runs but Mercedes were very close. The tyres seemed to be holding on throughout the session and degradation seems very low making a 1-stop race probable.
After the session Toto Wolff was saying that Mercedes were not running any weird tyre program that may have been the cause of their slow pace. Many think that they are still sandbagging and expect them to be ahead come qualifying.
FP2 PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (90/90 MINS): @ScuderiaFerrari looking very strong 🏋️ #RussianGP 🇷🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/3Og5VWi2k4
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 28, 2017
