Hamilton fastest in European GP practice

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Friday practice for the European Grand Prix at the Baku street circuit.

Mercedes dominated the two 90 minute sessions at the newly constructed venue with Hamilton coming out on top in both.

Organisers were forced to make changes to the kerbs prior to the start of the second session.

Nico Rosberg and Hamilton both enjoyed spells at the top of the times in the day’s final session before the latter posted a 1:44.223s effort on super-soft tyres to end up on top.

Rosberg proved to be 0.6s shy of his reigning world champion team-mate on the same rubber.

The championship leader’s day ended on a sour note when his Mercedes ground to a halt on track with 20 minutes remaining.

Baku’s long straights suited the Mercedes engined teams with Force India emerging as the best of the rest, with Sergio Perez in third, albeit 1.1s slower than Hamilton.

The Williams of Valtteri Bottas was fourth fastest ahead of the sister Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.

Carlos Sainz emerged as the quickest non Mercedes powered runner in sixth for Toro Rosso.

The Spaniard was however lucky to avoid contact with the barriers after a high speed spin at Turn 1.

Max Verstappen recovered from an oil leak in opening practice to finish seventh ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.

McLaren’s Jenson Button was ninth while Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top 10.

The Australian provided the only real incident of note when he clouted the wall at Turn 15 in the first session.

Although glad his RB12 was able to be repaired for the final hit-out, the 26-year-old says his Red Bull team is searching for the pace required to fight at the front this weekend.

“I felt a bit bad about it (the crash) and said sorry to the guys,” said Ricciardo.

“We don’t have the speed that we want for the rest of the weekend so we have got some work to do.

“If we can get it right for tomorrow I think we can find a chunk of lap time.”

A mechanical issue restricted Fernando Alonso’s running in Practice 2 with the Spaniard left to settle for 11th position.

The McLaren driver edged Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen, who struggled with a suspected engine issue.

Qualifying is scheduled to begin on Saturday at 2300 AEST.

Result: European Grand Prix Practice 2

Position	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:44.223s	–	33
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:44.913s	0.690s	26
3	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1:45.336s	1.113s	37
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1:45.764s	1.541s	35
5	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1:45.920s	1.697s	37
6	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:46.027s	1.804s	35
7	Max Verstappen	Red Bull/Renault	1:46.068s	1.845s	35
8	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:46.219s	1.996s	36
9	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1:46.234s	2.011s	32
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1:46.293s	2.070s	32
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1:46.498s	2.275s	27
12	Romain Grosjean	Haas/Ferrari	1:46.681s	2.458s	29
13	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:46.694s	2.471s	32
14	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:46.744s	2.521s	35
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	1:46.830s	2.607s	26
16	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1:47.060s	2.837s	28
17	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:47.329s	3.106s	38
18	Rio Haryanto	Manor/Mercedes	1:47.487s	3.264s	33
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1:47.772s	3.549s	22
20	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:47.794s	3.571s	35
21	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1:48.018s	3.795s	36
22	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1:48.081s	3.858s	38

Result: European Grand Prix Practice 1

Position	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:46.435s	–	23
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:46.812s	0.377s	32
3	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1:47.096s	0.661s	34
4	Fernando Alonso	McLaren/Honda	1:47.989s	1.554s	21
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:48.627s	2.192s	26
6	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1:48.922s	2.487s	17
7	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1:49.019s	2.584s	21
8	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1:49.125s	2.690s	22
9	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:49.267s	2.832s	16
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1:49.301s	2.866s	27
11	Romain Grosjean	Haas/Ferrari	1:49.611s	3.176s	20
12	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:49.635s	3.200s	16
13	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1:49.778s	3.343s	17
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	1:50.167s	3.732s	25
15	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1:50.473s	4.038s	18
16	Max Verstappen	Red Bull/Renault	1:50.485s	4.050s	7
17	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1:50.551s	4.116s	19
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:50.910s	4.475s	25
19	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:50.939s	4.504s	27
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1:51.219s	4.784s	24
21	Felipe Nasr	Sauber/Ferrari	1:51.771s	5.336s	11
22	Rio Haryanto	Manor/Mercedes	1:51.925s	5.490s	28