Hamilton bounces back as quickest in FP2 at Singapore

__This afternoon we saw Mercedes setting the pace in the second practice session at the Singapore Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton fastest ahead of Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo.

The main talking point of FP2 was Rosberg who is the championship leader, finished the session in 12th place. But his position and the 1.5-second gap to Hamilton was misleading to the fact he was forced to abandon his sole low-fuel lap on the supersoft tyres when Pastor Maldonado slammed his Lotus into the wall further ahead on the track.

On his lap, Rosberg had just clocked the fastest first sector of all on the red-marked rubber which was 28.702s and this was just seconds before Maldonado hit the walls at Turn Ten, the sight of the crumpled Lotus E22 in the wall enough for Race Control to throw the red flag.

When action resumed and having already taken some of the life out of the supersoft rubber, the Mercedes team switched Rosberg onto his heavy-fuel race simulations while Hamilton began what proved an interepreation low-fuel effort. Still, both drivers completed copious running in the long-run simulations that concluded the session, leaving the battle finely poised heading into the weekend.

But it still remains to be seen whether the more technical and elongated street layout produces a more closely-matched battle outside of the Mercedes pair at the front of the field, but Ferrari and Red Bull at least.

Hamilton was fastest and set a lap time of 1.47.490 ahead of Fernando Alonso in second place 0.133 seconds behind and Daniel Ricciardo in third place 0.3 seconds behind him. Kimi Raikkonen continued Ferrari's good form today and finished in fourth place ahead of Sebastian Vettel in fifth who ran in the latter part of the session while the Red Bull changed his engine in quick time after it failing at the end of FP1 this morning.

Kevin Magnussen finished the session in sixth place ahead of his team mate Jenson Button in seventh place, Sergio Perez in eighth place and Nico Hulkenberg who finished in ninth place and Daniil Kvyat is having a good weekend so far and finished the session in tenth place.

Jean-Eric Vergne in eleventh place, Romain Grosjean in twelfth place and Nico Rosberg who finished the session in thirteenth place after being affected by Maldonado crashing into the barriers at Turn 10 during the session.

After crashing into the barriers at Turn 10 after going into the corner too deeply, Pastor Maldonado finished in fourteenth place ahead of the Sauber's of Adrian Sutil and Esteban Guiterrez who finished the session in fifteenth and sixteenth places. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were the most disappointing drivers of today and only managed to finish the session in seventeenth and eigteenth places and may appear to struggle to get a good result this weekend.

As we head to the latter stages of the grid, Jules Bianchi finished the session in ninteenth place ahead of his team mate Max Chilton in twentieth place who had to stop on the track at Turn 18 after suffering a turbo problem that caused his car to be on fire. But even with the problems Chilton encountered on his Marussia, he still finished ahead of the Caterham's with Kamui Kobayashi out performing Marcus Ericsson once again for twenty-first and twenty second places on the grid, even if Kobayashi during Turn 8 experienced an almighty lock up.

The classification of FP2 at the Singapore Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Lewis HamiltonMercedes 1.47.490
Fernando AlonsoFerrari 0.133s
Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault 0.300s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 0.541s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 0.551s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 0.868s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 0.945s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1.163s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.261s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1.280s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1.310s
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1.572s
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1.585s
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1.649s
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1.680s
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 1.800s
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1.871s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 2.481s
Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 3.122s
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 4.068s
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 4.585
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 5.446s

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