SHANGHAI — After Ferrari appeared to enjoy a comfortable advantage during the first practice session, Valtteri Bottas showed Mercedes was still in the fight in China, the Finn going fastest in the second practice session at Shanghai Int’l Circuit.
Bottas edged Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel by .027 seconds in the second session.
“The day ended up OK, we made it to the top of the time sheets, but it is always very difficult to find a good balance through an entire lap on this track,” Bottas said. “We got there step by step and the car was feeling ok in the end, but it’s only Friday and it’s the next two days that count. Ferrari still seem to be quicker than us on the straights, whereas we were better in most corners in FP2.
“We still have room for improvement, but we know the others are going to work hard on their cars as well, so we’re going to have to wait and how much we can improve in relation to them. The wind is forecasted to change direction over the next two days which can make things really tricky as we saw in Bahrain two weeks ago, so that’s going to make things interesting.”
Despite early spins for both Bottas and team mate Lewis Hamilton, Bottas recovered to lead the session with a 1 minute and 33.330 second lap, while debris on the track meant Hamilton was unable to nail a quick lap, leaving him fourth and 0.7 seconds adrift of the Finn.
Red Bull will have been buoyed by the performance of Max Verstappen, who finished just over two tenths down on Bottas’ time in third — and that despite a wobble at the final corner on his fastest lap that would have lost him some time.
Charles Leclerc was another front-runner failing to set the time sheets on fire in FP2, the near-winner in Bahrain finishing the session down in seventh place. The Monegasque ended his session early too, after Ferrari parked his SF90 to carry out cooling system checks on the car.
Despite those problems, Leclerc was at least two spots up on the second Red Bull of Pierre Gasly, the Frenchman appearing to continue to struggle in the RB15, a car he described as “tricky” in the build-up to this weekend’s on-track action.
Nico Hulkenberg was fifth for Renault.
Haas F1 drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were 16thand 17th.