2015 F1 Round 12 Italian Grand Prix FP2 – Hamilton edges Rosberg by 0.021 seconds, Vettel third

Hamilton again led the second practice session for the Italian Grand Prix on the afternoon of September 4. His fastest lap was a 1:24.279, with Rosberg just 0.021 seconds behind and Vettel third.

Hamilton first set a 1:25.133 on medium tyres before improving by nearly a second on softs. Rosberg also used soft tyres to record a 1:24.300, leaving the two Mercedes cars closely matched.

Vettel’s 1:25.038 was 0.759 seconds slower than Hamilton. Compared with the 1.588-second deficit in the morning’s first practice session, Ferrari’s single-lap gap to the front had narrowed.

Force India remained competitive, with Pérez fourth and Hülkenberg fifth. Räikkönen was sixth, ahead of Grosjean in seventh and Maldonado in eighth, putting both Lotus cars in the top ten.

Grosjean had a scare at Ascari, but his earlier valid lap remained on the timesheets. Bottas and Massa took ninth and tenth, while Sauber’s Nasr and Ericsson were 11th and 12th.

Ricciardo limped back to the pits in first gear with a hydraulic problem. Repairs cost him a substantial amount of practice time, and he finished 13th. Team-mate Kvyat showed no improvement in lap performance and was 20th in the official classification.

Verstappen spun at Ascari and narrowly missed the tyre barrier, eventually finishing 14th. Sainz was 15th and completed 50 laps, the most of any driver in the session.

Technical problems limited Button’s McLaren to just three laps, leaving him 19th. Alonso was 16th, while Stevens and Merhi finished 17th and 18th respectively.