» Hamilton fastest in FP2

Mercedes has dominated the second practice session in Austria, this time it was Lewis Hamilton taking the honours.

Hamilton finished 0.370 seconds ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg, but almost one second clear of Fernando Alonso in the third-placed Ferrari. Only the Mercedes were able to break into the 1m09s range.

Average conditions saw the threat of rain loom around the circuit along with fast changing winds, which played havoc with drivers trying to get a fast lap in.

Track conditions remained quite slippery, even with the running of FP1 and a free practice of GP2.

Marcus Ericsson and Adrian Sutil were the first drivers out on circuit, which was no surprise given that both of them ran into difficulties during the first practice session.

Drivers were still getting to grips with what is a new circuit to most of the field, trying to get their set up right to avoid problems in qualifying. The whole field except Mercedes seemed to struggle with traction out of Turn One.

Jules Bianchi was the first to put on the super soft tyres after 35 minutes of running, and was followed shortly after by the front running teams. The gap between the soft and super soft tyres seems to be around 0.6s – 0.8s.

Williams finished the practice session much better than FP1, with Valtteri Bottas in fourth and Felipe Massa in fifth. The pair notched up a combined total of 83 laps.

Red Bull Racing also saw a big improvement as both of their cars finished in the top 10. Sebastian Vettel was sixth while his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was eighth. Although there was only a tenth of a second between them, they were well over a second off Mercedes’ pace.

Kamui Kobayashi was forced to end his session early when he encountered brake problems in his Caterham. He finished the session 21st and seven-tenths ahead of his team-mate Marcus Ericsson, who doubled Kobayashi’s completed laps after his FP1 program was kept to less than 10 laps.

Jenson Button finished seventh in his McLaren, however reported to his team that they have the same balance and set-up problems as they had two weeks ago (in Canada).

His team-mate Kevin Magnussen was ninth fastest, one-tenth of a second behind while Jean-Eric Vergne rounded out the top 10 a further tenth of a second adrift.

2014 Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:09.542		37
2.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:09.919	+ 0.377	50
3.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:10.470	+ 0.928	40
4.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:10.519	+ 0.977	44
5.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:10.521	+ 0.979	39
6.	Sebastian Vettel	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:10.807	+ 1.265	39
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:10.813	+ 1.271	44
8.	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:10.920	+ 1.378	36
9.	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:10.936	+ 1.394	45
10.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:10.972	+ 1.430	39
11.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:10.974	+ 1.432	45
12.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:11.261	+ 1.719	45
13.	Sergio Pérez	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:11.296	+ 1.754	36
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:11.491	+ 1.949	42
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:11.765	+ 2.223	30
16.	Adrian Sutil	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:11.806	+ 2.264	42
17.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:11.935	+ 2.393	39
18.	Max Chilton	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:12.229	+ 2.687	43
19.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:12.262	+ 2.720	46
20.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:12.279	+ 2.737	36
21.	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:12.937	+ 3.395	24
22.	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:13.596	+ 4.054	48