European GP: Mixed result for Williams Martini in FP2

Team Summary:
After an issue with the kerbs coming free at certain corners was resolved the second Friday practice session would get underway. Valtteri Bottas would be first out for Williams. Gutierrez would set a 1m:50.401 followed by Nasr and Grosjean. Sainz would go quicker with a 1m:48.691 with Valtteri now third. Rosberg was now second, 1m:49.376, set on the medium tyre. Perez would go quickest with a 1m:47.891 followed by Hulkenberg. Sainz would return to the top of the times followed by the Force India cars. Valtteri would go qui8ckest only to see Hamilton, 1m:45.102, Rosberg, and Alonso move ahead. Of the three drivers only Rosberg was on the harder medium tyre.

On his run with the supersoft tyre Valtteri would move up to third as more drivers started to come out on the supersoft tyre. Valtteri would move up to second only ot drop to third when Rosberg went fastest with a 1m:44.913. Hamilton was now second followed by Valtteri, Sainz, Alonso, Perez, Verstappen, Hulkenberg, and Felipe. Vettel would improve to be fifth, 1m:46.678, set on the supersoft tyre. Perez would move up to fourth with a 1m:45.942. But team-mate Hulkenberg would take this spot as Valtteri pitted. Hamilton would go quickest in the first two sectors but would make an error in the final sector seeing him not improve.

Perez was now up to third with Valtteri now fourth. Hamilton would attempt another quick lap and would set a 1m:44.223 to be quickest 0.690 ahead of Rosberg. With forty five minutes remaining and the track was quite empty but with thirty eight minutes remaining the track would again be quite busy. Most drivers were completing longer runs including both of the Williams drivers. Rosberg was told to stop by his engineer seeing him pull of to the side of the track. This would see the Virtual Safety Car being deployed. The track would again return green. There was a mix of soft and supersoft tyres out on the track as the session drew to a close. Valtteri would pit taking on used medium tyres while Felipe was on soft tyres and they would run on these to the end of the session. Valtteri would finish fourth and Felipe sixteenth. This was a massive difference between the pair.

Valtteri Bottas:
Valtteri would leave the pit lane first for Williams running on a news set of medium tyres. His first lap would be a 1m:50.546 to be third but of the top ten only he and Grosjean were on the medium tyre. Valtteri would drop to fourth then fifth as those on the soft tyre went quicker. But Valtteri would improve with a 1m:48.544 to be second. With Hulkenberg improving he would drop to third and then fifth. Again Valtteri would find time setting a 1m:47.332 to be quickest. But again those on the soft tyre would go quicker seeing him drop to fourth. After seven laps Valtteri would pit. He would drop to sixth to be behind Perez and Hulkenberg.

With an hour and ten minutes remaining Valtteri would return running on the supersoft tyre. He was currently eighth behind Button. On his first quick lap on the softer tyre he would set a 1m:46.519 to be third, but this was behind both Mercedes cars. As he completed more laps Valtteri would improve on his second run. He would set a 1m:45.764 to be second. He would drop to third and then would pit after seven laps on the softer tyre. He would drop to fourth. After a time in his garage Valtteri would return to the track running on used supersoft tyres. With twenty minutes remaining Valtteri had completed sixteen laps on the supersoft tyre. Valtteri would make a brief visit to the pits returning to the track. With ten minutes remaining Valtteri had completed twenty one laps on his long run. He would complete twenty six laps on the supersoft tyre. He would pit with just minutes left in the session coming back out on the used medium tyres. Valtteri would comment that he felt there was more to come from the car.

Felipe Massa:
With five minutes of the session run Felipe was still in his garage but he would finally come out running on a new set of soft tyres. Felipe would set a 1m:59.829, a very slow lap, to be twentieth. Felipe would follow this up with a 1m:47.779 to be eighth. Felipe would drop to eleventh to be behind Verstappen. Felipe would pit having completed seven laps. Felipe would follow his team-mate onto the supersoft tyre and would set a 1m:47.302 to be ninth. With a 1m:47.060 Felipe would improve but he was now only in eleventh. Felipe would continue to drop down the order with fifty minutes remaining he was only fifteenth and he would pit. Felipe would drop to sixteenth as Ricciardo moved ahead of him.

Felipe would return to the track with just over thirty minutes remaining. He was also on his used set of supersoft tyres. Felipe would pit having completed fourteen laps. He would return this time on the soft tyre and would start a longer run. He was currently down in sixteenth. With the end of the session Felipe had completed thirteen laps on the soft tyre prior to stopping.

Pos  Driver         	Team		        Time     Laps
1  Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes		1m44.223s 33
2  Nico Rosberg		Mercedes		1m44.913s 26
3  Sergio Perez		Force India-Mercedes	1m45.336s 37
4  Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1m45.764s 35
5  Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1m45.920s 37
6  Carlos Sainz		Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m46.027s 35
7  Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Renault	1m46.068s 35
8  Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari			1m46.219s 36
9  Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda		1m46.234s 32
10 Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	1m46.293s 32
11 Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda		1m46.498s 27
12 Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari		1m46.681s 29
13 Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari			1m46.694s 32
14 Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m46.744s 35
15 Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari		1m46.830s 26
16 Felipe Massa		Williams-Mercedes	1m47.060s 28
17 Kevin Magnussen	Renault			1m47.329s 38
18 Rio Haryanto		Manor-Mercedes		1m47.487s 33
19 Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari		1m47.772s 22
20 Jolyon Palmer	Renault			1m47.794s 35
21 Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes		1m48.018s 36
22 Felipe Nasr		Sauber-Ferrari		1m48.081s 38