Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel maintained a slender advantage during a tightly-contested second practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Vettel posted a time of 1:31.310 on Super Soft tyres in representative twilight conditions at Sakhir to finish just 0.041s faster than Mercedes rival Valtteri Bottas, with Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo only 0.025s further back in third place.
Despite winding up quickest, it wasn’t the smoothest session for Vettel, as his SF70-H slowed in the final sector at the mid-point of running, and he had to coast back towards the pit lane.
Vettel was pushed by marshals in order to make it back to the pit lane, where Ferrari addressed the suspected mechanical issue and soon returned him to the track.
The joint-championship leader clocked the quickest overall lap despite failing to set the ultimate pace in any of the three sectors, with Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Räikkönen and Bottas, whose T-wing detached from his W08, sharing quickest sector times.
Räikkönen took fourth with Hamilton fifth, the Briton botching his first two laps on Super Soft tyres, before setting his personal best time.
Hamilton’s second attempt on Super Softs had to be aborted when he encountered Renault’s Nico Hülkenberg at Turn 10, with the Mercedes driver complaining about his rival’s actions, as he took to the run-off.
Stewards are to investigate the incident between Hamilton and Hülkenberg, who finished one place behind his rival in sixth spot.
Felipe Massa was seventh for Williams, having recovered from the brake problem which ended his first session, as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen collected eighth, spending a chunk of the session in the garage.
Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen finished firmly in the midfield for Haas, split by Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat, while Esteban Ocon took 12th, ahead of Jolyon Palmer, Fernando Alonso and Sergio Pérez.
Lance Stroll was a low-key 16th, ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Carlos Sainz Jr., who endured a truncated session after stopping at Turn 11 with smoke trailing from the STR12, his stricken machine briefly necessitating the use of the Virtual Safety Car.
Pascal Wehrlein and Stoffel Vandoorne completed the order, with the Belgian only joining the action mid-session after McLaren was forced to change the power unit in his MCL32 following an MGU-H problem during the first session.
Vandoorne appeared for only a handful of laps before returning to the pit lane with his best effort, on Soft tyres, 2.920s down on Vettel.
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