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Lewis Hamilton trailed team-mate Nico Rosberg as Mercedes dominated the second practice session at the German Grand Prix.

Hamilton was 0.394 seconds adrift of the German after a messy lap simulating qualifying and 0.2secs clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in third.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fourth and fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari.

Jenson Button was eighth but was taken to hospital with an eye “irritation”.

The 2009 world champion was said by the McLaren team to have gone to Mannheim hospital “to have a precautionary check-up”.
Button had also complained of an overheating cockpit earlier in the session.

The Briton’s team-mate Fernando Alonso, whose 35th birthday was yesterday, was 10th fastest, 0.138secs adrift of Button. The Spaniard also seemed to be unhappy with the car and had an untidy lap.

Hamilton appeared to be on the back foot throughout the day, lagging a couple of tenths of a second behind Rosberg in the first session, on the qualifying simulation runs and on both the super-soft and soft tyres on the race-simulation runs.

But he will spend the evening studying the data to work out what was wrong as he attempts to go into the mid-season break after this weekend still in the lead of the championship.

Hamilton took the lead for the first time with his victory in Hungary last weekend, his fifth in six races — a run which has turned a 43-point lead for Rosberg into a six-point lead for Hamilton.

Ferrari and Red Bull look set for another close fight for best of the rest, with Vettel and Raikkonen sandwiching the two Red Bulls, with Verstappen only 0.034secs quicker than Ricciardo.

Behind the Red Bulls, Force India and McLaren look closely matched, with Nico Hulkenberg setting seventh fastest time, ahead of Button and the German’s team-mate Sergio Perez ahead of Alonso in ninth.

Williams had a disappointing day but can be expected to join that fight over the weekend. —BBCSport.