Lewis Hamilton led a comfortable Mercedes one-two in the second practice session for the Russian Grand Prix with the closest Ferrari half a second behind.

Having avoided the hyper-soft tyres during the first practice session, the silver cars ran them for the first time in the afternoon and ended up conclusively faster than their rivals. Hamilton was four-tenths of a second quicker than the Red Bulls, who will not be in contention for pole position due to their power unit change penalties.

The Ferrari pair were next, Sebastian Vettel half a second slower than his championship rival and Kimi Raikkonen almost as much behind his team mate.

Most of the front-runners sampled the hyper-soft and ultra-soft tyres during their subsequent high-fuel runs. Raikkonen bucked the trend, however, trying one of his two sets of soft tyres.

Both Force India drivers made it into the top 10, led by Sergio Perez and split by Pierre Gasly’s Toro Rosso. Brendon Hartley could only manage 16th in the team’s other car, admitting he wasn’t able to carry as much speed mid-corner as his team mate.

Marcus Ericsson, who sat out first practice as Antonio Giovinazzi was in his car, completed the top 10. Team mate Charles Leclerc, who had been unhappy with his car in first practice, continued to want for pace in the second session.

The McLaren pair were slower than everyone bar the Williams drivers. The two drivers again practiced sharing slipstreams to improve each others’ lap times.

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Second practice visual gaps

Lewis Hamilton – 1’33.385 +0.199 Valtteri Bottas – 1’33.584 +0.442 Max Verstappen – 1’33.827 +0.459 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’33.844 +0.543 Sebastian Vettel – 1’33.928 +1.003 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’34.388 +1.737 Sergio Perez – 1’35.122 +1.752 Pierre Gasly – 1’35.137 +1.762 Esteban Ocon – 1’35.147 +1.910 Marcus Ericsson – 1’35.295 +1.946 Kevin Magnussen – 1’35.331 +1.956 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’35.341 +2.047 Charles Leclerc – 1’35.432 +2.183 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’35.568 +2.526 Romain Grosjean – 1’35.911 +2.639 Brendon Hartley – 1’36.024 +2.689 Fernando Alonso – 1’36.074 +3.232 Stoffel Vandoorne – 1’36.617 +3.476 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’36.861 +3.616 Lance Stroll – 1’37.001

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2018 Russian Grand Prix