Hamilton stays ahead after FP2 in Austria

Lewis Hamilton kept his place at the top of the timesheets after the second practice session in Austria, setting a time of 1:05.483. The lap was half a second quicker than the time he set this morning around the Red Bull Ring.

Ferrari appeared to be more on the pace in the afternoon session compared to this morning, as Sebastian Vettel ended Friday practice in second place, just over a tenth of a second behind his title rival. Vettel was just ahead of the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, who ended his day in third.

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Red Bull look to be much stronger this weekend as they were able to go faster than a Ferrari in FP2. Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fourth and fifth, separated by the smallest of margins, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who could only go sixth.

After a fabulous result for Kevin Magnussen last time out in Azerbaijan, he looks to somewhat repeat it this weekend and stated his intent by setting a time of 1:06.591 which slotted him into seventh. Magnussen's teammate Romain Grosjean ended up in P10, one and a half tenths down on his the Dane.

In between the two Haas' was Fernando Alonso, who's McLaren seems to be working well with the new upgrade Honda has brought this weekend and the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg. Alonso suffered from quite a hefty spin on his long run, skating across the grass and gravel.

Esteban Ocon was just outside the top 10 in P11, followed by Stoffel Vandoorne, whose fastest time was one-hundredth of a second behind the Frenchman. The Williams of Felipe Massa was thirteenth, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz who suffered a leak in his car later on in the session.

Fifteenth and sixteenth also saw a Williams and Toro Rosso pairing, with Lance Stroll leading Daniil Kvyat. Kvyat's rear brakes suffered a small fire on his return to the pitlane in the last minutes of the session. Sergio Perez was seventeenth ahead of Jolyon Palmer who yet again, suffered reliability problems during the session.

Much like the first practice session this morning, the Saubers rounded out the field with Pascal Wehrlein heading Marcus Ericsson.