Hamilton finds more pace to lead second practice

F1 Grand Prix, GP Malaysia, Sepang International Circuit

Lewis Hamilton turned the table on Rosberg and topped the timesheet in second practice, having been earlier outpaced by the latter. While the Mercedes fitted softs for the first time this weekend, Ferrari edged somewhat closer, reducing their gap to the pace setter to less than 7 tenths.

Behind Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen was an additional 2 tenths down while Max Verstappen now went 5th fastest, ahead of Perez and Alonso.

The top 10 in this session was completed by Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Button, making it the same 5 teams that fill the top 10 spots on the timing sheet as in the morning session.

Running went smoothly overall, but a blistering hot 54°C on track made for a slippery track early in the session while reducing the advantage of the soft tyres compared to the other two compounds.

Kevin Magnussen remarkably made it back on track after his car caught fire in FP1. Renault's mechanics had their hands full getting his car ready again, but managed to get the Dane out with an hour left in the session.