Rosberg keeps advantage as rain hits Spielberg

F1 Grand Prix, GP Austria, Red Bull Ring

Just like in the morning session, Nico Rosberg was the fastest man in the second practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton however came tantalizingly close and was second fastest, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg.

The fastest time of the 90-minute session was set during the first 5 minutes before rain started to come down.

Daniel Ricciardo sat third after the first dry minutes with a supersoft run to 1m 08.649s in his Red Bull RB12.

The early times were the ranking order for more than an hour, as the track was wet enough to reduce the pace to more than 10 seconds off the normal laptimes. 20 minutes from the end though, the situation began to improve and the track rapidly dried up, partly thanks to it being a short circuit, resulting in cars passing over the same stretches of asphalt more frequently.

The first to make a sizable improvement was Raikkonen who improved from 17th to 8th. Hamilton also managed to improve to go second fastest, before deciding to dive into the pits while on an even faster lap. Team mate Nico Rosberg did something similar towards the very end of the session, breaking off a lap after setting the fastest times in sector 1 and 2.

Sebastian Vettel on the other hand failed to improve after both Mercedes showed their pace, ending up in the gravel after spinning off. He lost the rear end of his car under braking for turn 2, and reported to his team he had "no idea what happened there".