Bahrain GP: Mercedes team continues to make others look silly in 2nd practice

Mercedes continued to make their opponents look silly in Formula 1 as Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets at the end of the second practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Hamilton was 0.365 seconds faster than his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.

Third quickest was Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari, a tad more than a second slower than Hamilton, pointing to the continued superiority of the Mercedes team.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest ahead of the Williams of Felipe Massa with the superior Mercedes engine.

In sixth place was Jenson Button's McLaren, also with the superior Mercedes engine, one position ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel who is strapped with the boat anchor Renault Power Unit.

The hapless Caterham team was dead last – the worst car coupled with the worst engine.

Lewis Hamilton
It's been a pretty decent day for us. The car felt good from the outset which allowed us to spend time getting to grips with the tires. The softs in particular seem to be working well and we saw a fair difference in lap time between them and the mediums. The focus today was on the second session as the timing and conditions reflects that of the rest of the weekend and the difference in temperature between the sessions was quite large. The key was to not react too much to that change in terms of our approach to set-up and we seemed to manage that well. It was great driving under the spotlights here: the circuit looks even better at night and you don't really notice a difference in terms of visibility. It's actually quite nice to be driving in cooler conditions too. As always there are still some tweaks we can make to improve the car, but overall I'm feeling good. I heard the update about Michael after P2 and we are all thinking of him and his family.

Nico Rosberg
Today was a good day of testing for us. It seems that we are quick in terms of outright pace and I also had a good long run in the second session, so I'm quite confident about the weekend ahead. Driving in the evening is very different, as the track temperatures are much lower than during all the test sessions we've had so far during the day. We learned a lot in the new conditions and it worked out quite well. It was also great to hear some encouraging news about Michael today. The whole paddock was happy to hear this and I hope his progress continues.

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