Hamilton stays ahead in second practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Spain, Circuit de Catalunya

The top 6 of the afternoon practice session ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix turned out to be an exact copy of that in first practice. The differences were smaller than in the morning, but Lewis Hamilton still led Valtteri Bottas in the eventual standings.

Following up on trialling new components in the morning, most teams went on to do some qualifying runs on the soft tyres, along with longer runs on the medium Pirellis.

While Red Bull also confirmed their progress by staying within a second of Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg did as well, even though Renault only brought a minor update package before doing larger upgrades to their car in the next few race weekends.

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Jolyon Palmer, who sat out the morning session in favour of Sergei Sirotkin followed up in 8th, narrowly quicker than Felipe Massa. Carlos Sainz completes the top 10 for Toro Rosso.

The second half of the order was made up largely by Sauber, Haas, Force India and of course McLaren. For the Honda powered team, fortunes were again mixed. While Vandoorne quietly went on to go 13th fastest, Alonso continued to be frustrated, and in the end of the session reported cynically "The engine feels good, much slower than before. Amazing".