Lewis Hamilton overtook team-mate Jenson Button at the top of the practice timesheets during the second session in China this afternoon, posting a time of 1m35.217s to end the day as the fastest man on-track. The Briton took to the top of the standings with just over half way gone in the session, going half a second quicker than Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, and although he failed to improve for the rest of the session, he remained fastest.

Rosberg later improved his own time to come within a quarter of a second of the McLaren, setting a 1m35.465s seven minutes after Hamilton took over at the top. Jenson Button had to be happy with third place on a time of 1m35.593s, and was fortunate to finish ahead of Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher who was less than a hundredth of a second adrift in fourth on a 1m35.602s.

With track temperatures preaking at a relatively low high of 29°C at the start of the session, drivers complained of a lack of grip coming from the soft and hard Bridgestone tyres. The notoriously difficult turns 1, 2 and 3 were especially challenging with low grip, but even so laptimes improved by well over a second from the morning. Times are likely to improve further tomorrow with temperatures set to rise and as more rubber is laid on the track.

Elsewhere on the timesheets, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finished line astern in fifth and sixth places with times of 1m35.791s and 1m35.995s respectively, keeping them within striking distance of the Mercedes-powered cars. Adrian Sutil made it five Mercedes powerplants in the top seven with a time of 1m36.254s, albeit some two tenths off Webber. Jaime Alguersuari (1m36.377s), Robert Kubica (1m36.389s) and Fernando Alonso (1m36.604s) completed the top ten, with championship leaders Ferrari keeping their customary low profile during the Friday sessions.

Away from the business end of the standings and BMW Sauber once again failed to get inside the top ten, with de la Rosa and Kobayashi taking 13th and 14th places. Williams, meanwhile, was the slowest established team, with Lotus again leading the fight for best of the new teams.

Following his dramatic accident in first practice, which it transpired was caused by a front-right suspension upright failure, Sébastien Buemi failed to make it out on-track, despite his team working feverishly to get his car repaired. The suspension uprights in question were new pieces being trialled for the first time, but the team has now reverted to an older-spec model to get it through the weekend.

Here are the results from first practice;

Here are the results from second practice;