Mercedes maintained its impressive start to the 2019 Formula 1 season as Valtteri Bottas led a 1-2 for the team during second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Bottas posted a time of 1:17.284 to eclipse team-mate Lewis Hamilton by 0.049s – the Briton reducing setting his best effort on a second push lap – as the teams took on Soft tyres.
Championship leader Bottas wound up 0.301s clear of lead Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, with Sebastian Vettel a further 0.088s down on his team-mate.
Max Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull after reverting to the Spec 2 engine introduced in Azerbaijan one session earlier than planned.
This was because an oil leak occurred on the Spec 1 unit – still available in his pool of engines – during the first practice session on Friday morning.
Red Bull planned to move Verstappen and Pierre Gasly to the Spec 2 unit they raced in Azerbaijan for Saturday morning’s final practice session; Gasly, who took seventh in the session, was equipped with the Spec 1 that he raced in Australia through China.
Haas maintained its eye-catching one-lap pace as Romain Grosjean split the Red Bull drivers to take sixth, as the only midfielder within a second of Bottas, while team-mate Kevin Magnussen placed eighth.
In a congested midfield less than three tenths of a second covered the lead drivers from McLaren, Toro Rosso, Alfa Romeo, Racing Point and Renault.
Local representative Carlos Sainz Jr. was ninth for McLaren while Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat went off track at Turn 1 but avoided the barriers in a session in which he capped the top 10.
Kimi Raikkonen was 11th, with Alexander Albon 12th and Lance Stroll 13th – the Racing Point driver equipped with some old-spec parts in the wake of his crash in the first practice session.
Renault had another low-key showing with Nico Hulkenberg its quickest representative in 14th place, in front of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who will drop three places on the grid for hitting Kvyat in Azerbaijan.
Lando Norris was again adrift of team-mate Sainz Jr. and classified 16th, ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.
Williams took up its customary position at the rear of the field with George Russell’s best lap seven-tenths behind nearest rival Perez.
Robert Kubica, who spun exiting the chicane early in the session on an out lap, finished a further half a second behind.
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