Mercedes 1-2 in 2nd Brazilian GP practice

Lewis Hamilton

Driving the superior Aldo Costa designed Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were separated by just three-hundredths of a second in Friday’s second practice for the Formula 1 Grande Premio do Brasil 2016, as the two Mercedes drivers dominated proceedings at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.

This time it was Williams giving chase to the Silver Arrows, with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa third and fourth respectively, though with a half-second deficit they were nowhere near as close to the world champions as Red Bull had been in FP1.

At Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo edged ahead of teammate Max Verstappen to finish fifth, while Sebastian Vettel led Ferrari’s charge, narrowly pipping partner Kimi Raikkonen for seventh. Force India's Nico Hulkenberg was ninth, with the McLaren of Jenson Button completing the top ten.

The top 10 cars were lined up by car make because in F1 it's 99% car and 1% driver.

Once again, Hamilton set the early pace on the medium Pirelli tires with 1m 13.157s against Rosberg’s 1m13.355s, then bettered the German again when they switched to the softs. Rosberg went fastest on 1m12.301s, before Hamilton replied with 1m12.271s. Interestingly, the three fastest sector times belonged to Bottas, Rosberg and Massa, indicating that Hamilton had more to come.

It was Bottas who took third, with 1m12.761s, a fraction ahead of Massa’s 1m12.789s on his last appearance in front of his home crowd, as Ricciardo and Verstappen had to be content with fifth and sixth for Red Bull, with 1m12.828s and 1m12.928s respectively.

Ferrari ran the softs this time – once Raikkonen had done a few laps on the hard-compound tires – with 1m13.002s for Vettel and 1m13.047s for the Finn. Raikkonen is being investigated after the session, together with Carlos Sainz, for an incident in which they appeared to get in each other’s way between Turns 11 to 15, before the Ferrari driver overtook the Toro Rosso pilot on the outside of the final corner and then cut across the front of the Spaniard to go into the pits.

Hulkenberg jumped up to ninth for Force India with 1m 13.299s, as the McLaren of Button rounded out the top 10 with 1m 13.440s, just ahead of team mate Alonso’s 1m 13.572s. All of these times were set on the soft rubber.

It was not a happy session for McLaren, however, as Alonso was instructed to stop his car as he reached Turn 3, and to 'jump clear, please,' due to an ERS problem. After using a handy rock to prevent his MP4-31 from rolling away, the former champion watched the final third of the session glumly from the side of the track. Later he was invited to a nearby TV cameraman’s lair – and to even operate the camera – so he could keep an eye on what was happening around the course.

Elsewhere, Marcus Ericsson spun his Sauber early on at Bico de Pato, Romain Grosjean complained of loss of power and strange handling on his Haas, and Pascal Wehrlein said his Manor was nothing like as good as it had been in the first session – once again soundly beaten by his teammate Ocon.

Lewis Hamilton
It's been a good day. We got through all of our run programs and the car is feeling really good. It's pretty tough out here physically right now with the heat as high as it is. Not just in the car but for the guys in the garage too. Finding the right balance isn't easy either in these conditions as the tires are getting really hot. But our long run pace seems to be strong so we can be happy with the start we've made today.

Nico Rosberg
It's been very hot out there today – more so than we expect it to be for the rest of the weekend. As a result, that makes it difficult to fully prepare for qualifying and the race. Other than that, it was a pretty normal Friday. Our car looks quick but Red Bull are definitely close. The Soft tire is degrading quite a lot on the long runs, with blistering on the rears. There's a surprising amount of degradation on the Medium tire too – but I think overall we've got decent pace on the long runs. Strategy-wise it won't be straightforward for the race. But, again, it's meant to get quite a lot colder so we could see something completely different on Sunday. It's great to be back in Brazil. It's a proper race track and it always feels special driving somewhere with so much history and tradition.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)
Great weather here at Interlagos today – although the risk of sudden rain has already proven itself to be a threat since we arrived earlier this week. Our program so far has run exactly as planned, with no problems to report on either car. We worked exclusively with the Soft and Medium tires and our pace on both compounds at low and high fuel looks relatively encouraging. We are, however, a long way from the conditions we expect to see in qualifying and the race. We have a lot more work to do before then, with the potential for a very close competition. This is a circuit renowned for throwing jokers into the pack, so we take nothing for granted heading into the weekend.

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