The second practice session at Shanghai saw Lewis Hamilton edge out two Finns, the fastest of which was Kimi Räikkönen. The Scuderia Ferrari driver was just 0.007s down on the pace setter, with their respective team mates also incredibly closely matched. The top 4 drivers ended the session covered within 0.108s.
Behind the leading quartet, Max Verstappen ended up 5th fastest, 3 tenths down. He stayed ahead of both Renaults and Magnussen in the Haas. Daniel Ricciardo was 9th fastest, an unusually low position for the Australian. Fernando Alonso completed the top 10 thanks to the second Haas of Grosjean being out of order in 19th position.
As the session remained dry until the last 10 minutes, drivers could all complete a large number of laps. This included Stoffel Vandoorne, who still managed 22 laps before parking his car alongside the track with a suspected loose rear wheel. Even when the rain eventually arrived, several drivers – namely Perez, Ocon, Gasly, Hartley, Ericsson and Alonso – still opted to venture out on track on the intermediates to get a feel for the conditions.
Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel heightened the fact that the Maranello team still has a lot of work to do ahead of the qualifying session on Saturday and the race on Sunday: “I think at this track it is very important to find the right feeling with the car and its setup. The track is long and the tires struggle here. But, overall, I think we are quite close. However, the car is not yet where I want it to be. So, we are still looking at how we can improve. I think the SF71H has the pace, but you need to make sure it works. Today it’s been a mixed day and I think in the afternoon it was a bit better and I was a little bit happier. Hopefully tomorrow I’m going to be very happy!” – Seb explained, as reported by Scuderia Ferrari’s official website.
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