Vettel shines as Hamilton struggles in Malaysia!

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel set the pace in second practice at the Malaysian Grand Prix as title rival Lewis Hamilton struggled in his Mercedes.

Vettel headed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen by 0.604 seconds with the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen third and fourth, and Hamilton sixth.

The Briton, 28 points ahead of Vettel, was a massive 1.416secs off the pace.

The session came to an end early following a major crash involving Haas driver Romain Grosjean.

Mercedes said the drivers had a lack of grip and the team did not yet understand why there were off the pace.

Hamilton also had a spin, losing the rear and sliding off track at Turn Seven.

Worryingly for Hamilton, the car was struggling on both short runs with low fuel and longer runs with high fuel.

Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who was seventh fastest overall at 0.043secs behind the Briton, was 0.7secs slower than Vettel on average on their race-simulation runs in the second part of the session.

And the world champion’s attempts to work out what was wrong will be hampered by the fact that Hamilton did not get to do any meaningful running on high fuel loads after Grosjean’s crash.

The poor performance of the Mercedes came as a major surprise – the two leading cars were expected to be evenly matched on this track, with Mercedes perhaps having a slight edge as a result of its superior aerodynamic efficiency on a circuit with a number of long-duration corners and two sizeable straights.

Grosjean was unhurt following the accident at Turn 13, which was caused when his right-rear tyre was punctured by a loose drain cover.