Hamilton maintains lead as Rosberg hits trouble

F1 Grand Prix, GP Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit

Lewis Hamilton continued to lead the field in the second free practice session at Silverstone. As Red Bull Racing emerged as the biggest contenders to Mercedes, Nico Rosberg hit trouble and sat out the entire session as his engineers worked on his W07.

While Rosberg was stuck in the pitlane after the team worked to remedy a water leak, Hamilton reigned surpreme, first going fastest again on the medium, before improving to 1:31.660.

While Red Bull already showed promising pace in the morning, their positions on the timesheet at the end of FP2 appear to be fully justified, underlining they are well on form and benefiting from the car's stability in high speed corners.

Ferrari on the other hand were quite considerably behind the Red Bulls, with Vettel more than half a second down on Ricciardo.

6th fastest was Fernando Alonso, building on an already positive morning session for McLaren Honda. Jenson Button had a particularly strong end to the session, having initially been confined to the garage as Honda were looking into a power delivery problem. An early return to the track only lasted for a single lap, as Button had to recognise it was not fixed the first time out. They subsequent attempt was more successful, allowing the Brit to still complete 20 laps.

After an anonymous first session, Williams returned to the top 10 whereas Force India dropped down the pecking order, with its cars going 15th and 16th fastest only.