Nico Rosberg continued to set the pace on home soil with the quickest time of second practice for this weekend’s German Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver once again finishing ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton at the Hockenheimring.
In the morning session Rosberg had eclipsed Hamilton by 0.326 in the morning session and though in the afternoon both set slightly slower best times, with Rosberg posting a 1:15.614, the German this time beat new championship leader Hamilton by almost four tenths of a second.
Sebastian Vettel claimed the third position he had also occupied earlier in the day. but whereas he had been 1.1s adrift of Rosberg in FP1 this time, in qualifying trim, the Ferrari driver took half a second out of the gap to finish 0.594 behind the top Mercedes.
However, while Vettel repeated his morning placing, Kimi Raikkonen who finished directly behind the four-time champion in the first session, this time lost out to the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo. It was a close-run thing, though with the trio separated by just 0.056s.
After finishing 15th and 16th in FP1, when they only ran the medium tyres, Force India fared better in the afternoon with Nico Hulkenberg claiming P7 on the supersoft tyres. At his home race Hulkenberg finished 0.367s and two places higher than team-mate Sergio Perez.
Eighth place in the session went to McLaren’s Jenson Button, though the Briton later had to make a trip to the medical centre, after complaining that he head been “irritated” by something in the cockpit. Tenth place in the session went to Button’s team-mate Fernando Alonso.
2016 German Grand Prix – Free Practice 21 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.614 432 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:16.008 363 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:16.208 394 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:16.456 405 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:16.490 386 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:16.512 457 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:16.781 438 Jenson Button McLaren 1:17.087 169 Sergio Perez Force India 1:17.148 4410 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:17.225 2111 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:17.342 3212 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:17.367 3813 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:17.425 4414 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:17.602 1315 Felipe Massa Williams 1:17.686 4016 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:18.005 4217 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:18.056 4618 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:18.130 2819 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:18.193 4220 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:18.313 4721 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:18.591 4722 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:19.295 41
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