Hamilton tops practice as Vettel hits trouble

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a comfortable margin over the field in Friday practice for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

The reigning world champion set the pace in the early running before eventually lowering his personal best to a 1:37.583s on the super-soft tyres.

Hamilton’s run in Practice 2 was not without issue when a spin at Turn 4 in the early stages saw the Mercedes driver severely flat spot a set of soft compound tyres.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was the Brit’s nearest rival albeit 0.6s adrift with his best effort set on the super-soft rubber.

The four-time world champion had topped the times with an hour remaining before an electrical fault saw him come to a halt on the pit straight.

Vettel failed to return to the track for the remainder of the session having been wheeled back to the garage under a Virtual Safety Car period.

Morning practice pacesetter Nico Rosberg was third fastest 0.2s shy of Vettel, with the sister Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in fourth.

Both Ferrari drivers ran an upgraded engine during the two 90 minute sessions.

Daniel Ricciardo once again emerged as the best of the rest in fifth just 1.5s slower than Hamilton on the soft tyres.

The Red Bull driver grabbed the headlines in opening practice as he trialled the team’s ‘aeroscreen’ cockpit protection system.

The Australian completed a solitary installation lap with the device attached to his RB12.

The top 10 was completed by Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, local hero Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull), Jenson Button (McLaren), Felipe Massa (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (McLaren).

New Renault F1 test driver Sergey Sirotkin impressed on his debut with the team by recording the 13th fastest time in first practice.

The effort was almost 0.8s quicker than his team-mate Jolyon Palmer.

Haas F1 continued to struggle for pace with Romain Grosjean 16th and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez in 17th position.

Result: Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix Practice 2

Result: Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix Practice 1