Hamilton beats Rosberg in second practice at German GP

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton defeated teammate Nico Rosberg in the second practice session at the German Grand Prix, but Red Bull, who have been struggling throughout this Formula One season, appear to have edged closer to them.

Hamilton was 0.024 seconds ahead of Rosberg followed closely by Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who was just 0.102 seconds adrift of the German.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was the fourth fastest driver and ahead of teammate Fernando Alonso, who came down ninth, The BBC reported.

McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was fifth ahead of Williams' Felipe Massa followed by Magnussen's teammate Jenson Button at seventh ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, Alonso and Williams' second Valtteri Bottas.

Rosberg made a mistake on his first run, running off track at Turn Two. However, the German was the quicker of the two Mercedes drivers by 0.065secs in the first session and he had an advantage of 0.1 seconds on average lap time in the race-simulation runs on heavier fuel later in the session.

As the drivers finished their race runs on the super-soft tyre and switched to the softs, there was a mix-up in the pits, when Rosberg's tyres were fitted to Hamilton's car, which meant that they had to be changed.

The German was delayed briefly when Hamilton stopped, causing his brakes to smoke as they overheated for a short time. Rosberg said that his dear teammate decided to pit without any warning so that put them all into a bit of a mess.