Abu Dhabi GP: Hamilton stays ahead of Rosberg in FP2

Hamilton lapped the Yas Marina track in 1m40.861s on ultrasoft rubber, just 0.079s quicker than Rosberg.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was best of the rest, a quarter of a second off the Mercedes pace, but ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari.

But Vettel's fine performance was ruined by what he reported as "gearbox failure" with 10 minutes left in the session.

Apart from Rosberg, only Vettel was within half a second of Hamilton's time.

As in the first session, Daniil Kvyat suffered a left-rear puncture on his Toro Rosso, but this time at the high-speed Turn 16, causing him to spin wildly off the circuit.

Story of the session

Vettel started the ball rolling with 1m43.337s on the soft-compound tyre, a time that was topped by teammate Raikkonen with 1m42.808s on the supersoft. Raikkonen later improved to 1m42.257s.

Verstappen took an early P2 on 1m43.233s, but that was topped by Vettel and then the supersoft-shod Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

Rosberg was only P6 after his first lap, and then climbed to third on 1m42.294s.

Hamilton set some very tardy laptimes early on, the slowest man on track in the 1m52s bracket, before rejoining on his softs after a pitstop. Rosberg also joined him briefly in the pitlane before also rejoining on his initial long run on the same tyres.

Times plunge on ultrasofts

Vettel tried the ultrasofts just before the 30-minute mark, lowering the P1 time to 1m41.404s, despite a lockup into Turn 7. Bottas jumped back to second on ultrasofts with 1m41.959s.

Rosberg then raised the ultrasoft bar with a lap of 1m40.940s. Verstappen went P3 on 1m41.389s, ahead of Raikkonen and Bottas.

Hamilton, who had languished at the bottom of the times, then unleashed his ultrasoft lap – a 1m40.861s, 0.079s ahead of Rosberg.

During his long run on ultrasofts, Hamilton was told to pit as he'd had an "incorrect front wing adjustment", but he radioed back saying he was fine and stayed out.

Meanwhile, Rosberg suffered a brief off after locking up at Turn 17 on his long run.

Vettel was best of the rest in third, ahead of the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo – who were within 0.001s of each other. Vettel ended his session stranded out on track, however.

Raikkonen was sixth quickest, ahead of Bottas. Force India pairing Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg were next up, with Massa – in his last ever grand prix weekend – rounding out the top 10.

Fernando Alonso was 11^th for McLaren, while teammate Jenson Button's last weekend in F1 continued to be troubled, as McLaren was forced into an engine change after his ERS failure in FP1.

Button joined the session late, and set the 12^thfastest time, half a second off Alonso.

Esteban Gutierrez was 13^th, ahead of Haas teammate Romain Grosjean. Jolyon Palmer was 15^th for Renault, ahead of the Manors of Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein.

Felipe Nasr pipped Marcus Ericsson for Sauber honours, both ahead of Renault's Kevin Magnussen.

The Toro Rossos languished at the bottom of the timesheets.

Problems for some

Kvyat suffered his second left-rear puncture of the day in the opening 10 minutes of FP2 that caused a massive spin at Turn 16. He just stopped short of the barrier, despite the 275kph entry speed.

As a result of this failure, Carlos Sainz was also grounded for the rest of the session.

Magnussen and Gutierrez had early overshoots at Turn 8 but they continued.

Grosjean was told to pit with a water-pressure problem: "You need to check the rear-right suspension as well, something is touching."

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	36	1'40.861
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	Mercedes	38	1'40.940	0.079	0.079
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	31	1'41.130	0.269	0.190
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	24	1'41.389	0.528	0.259
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	33	1'41.390	0.529	0.001
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	34	1'41.464	0.603	0.074
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	Mercedes	35	1'41.959	1.098	0.495
8	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	35	1'42.041	1.180	0.082
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	Mercedes	36	1'42.264	1.403	0.223
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	36	1'42.268	1.407	0.004
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	33	1'42.366	1.505	0.098
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	Honda	24	1'42.823	1.962	0.457
13	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	Ferrari	35	1'43.012	2.151	0.189
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	17	1'43.108	2.247	0.096
15	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	33	1'43.272	2.411	0.164
16	Esteban Ocon	Manor	Mercedes	35	1'43.600	2.739	0.328
17	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	Mercedes	33	1'43.754	2.893	0.154
18	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	Ferrari	36	1'43.903	3.042	0.149
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	34	1'44.045	3.184	0.142
20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	Renault	25	1'44.117	3.256	0.072
21	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	5	1'44.478	3.617	0.361
22	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	4	1'45.948	5.087	1.470