» Hamilton pips Rosberg in FP2

Lewis Hamilton has beaten Nico Rosberg to P1 in the second practice session at the Hockenheim circuit by 0.02 seconds.

The second practice session was dominated by scorching track temperatures exceeding 56 degrees Celsius, and playing havoc with teams trying to get a read on tyre behaviours.

Sauber’s Adrian Sutil was told to cool his super soft tyres by a whopping 20 degrees, which shows how much overheating the teams have to deal with.

Although there is rain expected for the race on Sunday, if the track were to reach such temperatures again we could see teams opting for a three stop strategy. The super soft tyre’s wouldn’t cope long in extreme conditions and the short pit lane provides a tempting option for a three stopping race.

On long run pace, Mercedes are still the team to beat as both drivers were consistently putting in times of low 1.22’s, however seemed to slow a bit the longer they stayed out. It’s easy to say that Mercedes are missing their FRIC suspension, but the simple reason could be that they’re sandbagging.

Red Bull currently look best of the rest for the third spot on the podium come Sunday, providing that both drivers qualify well. They were also quite consistent with their long run times and just a couple of tenths of a second behind the Mercedes drivers.

It’s hard to get a read on Ferrari’s session, as Fernando Alonso only completed a handful of complete laps before running single laps then returning to the garage. Kimi Raikkonen had a more promising session as his lap times look quite competitive for Sunday.

The Williams pair also had an interrupted session when Valtteri Bottas spent a bit of the last half stuck in the garage. Felipe Massa struggled to post competitive times early on, however once the track wore in a bit more he showed that the Williams have the pace to fight with Red Bull and Ferrari.

Kamui Kobayashi’s session ended early as a suspected exhausted problem saw his Caterham catch fire at Turn 16. He also reported over team radio that his brakes had failed which resulted in his session only lasting only 30 minutes.

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

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:18.341		38
2.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:18.365	+ 0.024	39
3.	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:18.443	+ 0.102	35
4.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:18.887	+ 0.546	38
5.	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:18.960	+ 0.619	40
6.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:19.024	+ 0.683	36
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:19.221	+ 0.880	40
8.	Sebastian Vettel	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:19.248	+ 0.907	35
9.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:19.329	+ 0.988	32
10.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:19.385	+ 1.044	34
11.	Adrian Sutil	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:19.417	+ 1.076	41
12.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:19.452	+ 1.111	27
13.	Sergio Pérez	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:19.581	+ 1.240	28
14.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:19.593	+ 1.252	32
15.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:19.760	+ 1.419	32
16.	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:20.158	+ 1.817	35
17.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:20.358	+ 2.017	35
18.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:20.504	+ 2.163	40
19.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:21.328	+ 2.987	31
20.	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:21.870	+ 3.529	21
21.	Max Chilton	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:21.898	+ 3.557	28
22.	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:23.728	+ 5.387	12