Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton turned it around after engine troubles this morning to go quickest in the second free practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
With just 8 laps on the board for the Briton, 5 on the hard compound 3 on the soft compound, Hamilton put in the fastest time of 1:39.790. Kimi Raikkonen, who held the fastest time for the session for quite a while, finished P2 for Ferrari, spitting the Mercedes pair. Nico Rosberg completed his afternoon session in P3 with a 1:40.218, nearly half a second down on his team mate.
Ferrari’s strategy of going for straight line speed seems to be getting them closer to Mercedes, but Mercedes still seem to have a slight advantage.
Daniil Kvyat ended his session in P4 for Red Bull and the highest placed car with a Renault powered engine. Daniel Ricciardo in the other Red Bull finished in P10 2.009s off Hamilton’s fastest time.
Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa finished the session 5th and 6th respectively for Williams while Sebastian Vettel ended his session in P7, 0.862s off Hamilton’s time.
Max Verstappen ended his session in P7 for Toro Rosso ahead of Marcus Ericsson for Sauber and Daniel Ricciardo who rounded out the top 10.
Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado was 11th fastest with his team mate languishing down in 18th. The other Force India of Sergio Perez ended his session down in P13 with team mate Nico Hulkenberg finishing in P15. Force India are paying the price for missing out on the first test. Carlos Sainz could not repeat his good form from FP1 and finished 14th.
While getting good mileage out of the new MP4-30 both McLaren drivers finished way down the order in P16 and P17. The two Manor drivers were 19th and 20th with only Will Stevens just within the 107% time.
Free Practice 2 times
