Hamilton tops practice as Vettel hits trouble

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a comfortable margin over the field in Friday practice for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

The reigning world champion set the pace in the early running before eventually lowering his personal best to a 1:37.583s on the super-soft tyres.

Hamilton’s run in Practice 2 was not without issue when a spin at Turn 4 in the early stages saw the Mercedes driver severely flat spot a set of soft compound tyres.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was the Brit’s nearest rival albeit 0.6s adrift with his best effort set on the super-soft rubber.

The four-time world champion had topped the times with an hour remaining before an electrical fault saw him come to a halt on the pit straight.

Vettel failed to return to the track for the remainder of the session having been wheeled back to the garage under a Virtual Safety Car period.

Morning practice pacesetter Nico Rosberg was third fastest 0.2s shy of Vettel, with the sister Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in fourth.

Both Ferrari drivers ran an upgraded engine during the two 90 minute sessions.

Daniel Ricciardo once again emerged as the best of the rest in fifth just 1.5s slower than Hamilton on the soft tyres.

The Red Bull driver grabbed the headlines in opening practice as he trialled the team’s ‘aeroscreen’ cockpit protection system.

The Australian completed a solitary installation lap with the device attached to his RB12.

The top 10 was completed by Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, local hero Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull), Jenson Button (McLaren), Felipe Massa (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (McLaren).

New Renault F1 test driver Sergey Sirotkin impressed on his debut with the team by recording the 13th fastest time in first practice.

The effort was almost 0.8s quicker than his team-mate Jolyon Palmer.

Haas F1 continued to struggle for pace with Romain Grosjean 16th and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez in 17th position.

Result: Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix Practice 2

Position	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.583s		30
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:38.235s	+0.652s	10
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.450s	+0.867s	37
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:38.793s	+1.210s	35
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1:39.084s	+1.501s	34
6	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1:39.185s	+1.602s	42
7	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1:39.193s	+1.610s	32
8	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1:39.196s	+1.613s	31
9	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1:39.289s	+1.706s	38
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1:39.400s	+1.817s	30
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:39.465s	+1.882s	37
12	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:39.501s	+1.918s	30
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1:39.795s	+2.212s	31
14	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1:39.867s	+2.284s	38
15	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:40.193s	+2.610s	41
16	Romain Grosjean	Haas/Ferrari	1:40.260s	+2.677s	24
17	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	1:40.508s	+2.925s	26
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:40.688s	+3.105s	37
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1:40.740s	+3.157s	31
20	Rio Haryanto	Manor/Mercedes	1:41.080s	+3.497s	38
21	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1:41.148s	+3.565s	23
22	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1:41.652s	+4.069s	29

Result: Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix Practice 1

Position	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.127s		32
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:38.849s	+0.722s	31
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:39.175s	+1.048s	19
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:39.332s	+1.205s	18
5	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1:39.365s	+1.238s	14
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1:39.650s	+1.523s	24
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1:39.802s	+1.675s	34
8	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1:40.218s	+2.091s	26
9	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1:40.287s	+2.160s	22
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:40.654s	+2.527s	21
11	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1:40.663s	+2.536s	19
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1:40.771s	+2.644s	18
13	Sergey Sirotkin	Renault	1:40.898s	+2.771s	24
14	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1:41.085s	+2.958s	21
15	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:41.134s	+3.007s	22
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	1:41.238s	+3.111s	18
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas/Ferrari	1:41.385s	+3.258s	20
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:41.671s	+3.544s	25
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1:41.962s	+3.835s	22
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1:42.483s	+4.356s	21
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor/Mercedes	1:42.687s	+4.560s	8
22	Alfonso Celis	Force India/Mercedes	1:43.432s	+5.305s	23