Hamilton sets the pace

Lewis Hamilton raised the bar for this week’s Spanish Grand Prix by setting the fastest time in second practice yesterday.

Hamilton was beaten to top spot by his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas in the opening running, but the reigning champion ended the day fastest at Barcelona’s sun-bathed Circuit de Catalunya.

The British driver’s best effort of one minute and 18.259 seconds enabled him to edge out Daniel Ricciardo by less than two tenths with his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen third.

Ricciardo crashed out of opening practice earlier yesterday after he lost control of his Red Bull at Turn 4 and slid helplessly across the sand trap and into the barriers. But following repairs to his car, the Australian, backed up by Verstappen, ran Hamilton close to suggest Red Bull have the credentials to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari.

Ferrari rarely show their true pace on Friday and Sebastian Vettel, who trails Hamilton by four points, finished in fourth, a third of a second down on Hamilton’s best time.

Vettel’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen posted the sixth fastest lap, but was told to park his Ferrari after puffs of white smoke came from his engine. Bottas was fifth in the order.

Mclaren had been hopeful that their revised car would curb a downward spiral, but after Fernando Alonso finished a dizzying sixth by trading times with the Red Bull cars in the day’s opening running, he was only 12th in the afternoon session.