Hamilton beats the pace of his second day

The Mercedes driver took the lead at the start of the race with soft rubber Pirelli tires, setting a best time of 1m28.911.

Mercedes' pace was so fast that Hamilton's time would have been good enough for second overall, with teammate Valtteri Bottas being the only driver to improve his score later in the supersoft session.

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel was the first of the leaders to complete a qualifying simulation, clocking a time of 1m29.257 to climb to second place.

This was then improved by Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who set a time of 1m29.050 despite the fact that he complained later that the car was behaving "like a rallycross".

Bottas had the chance to run as fast as possible, then go too fast in the bend of right-hander Degner 2 and make a big gap at the exit, giving up the lap.

Hamilton then completed his three lap qualifying simulation run, scoring the best time of the session with a time of 1m28.217 – taking a mouthful of grass between the pin and elbow before Spoon Curve in passing while touring Charles Leclerc.

Bottas then took a lap, overtaking Hamilton in the median sector which extends from the approach to Degner 1 in the middle of the straight line, but he was overall slower at .461.

This allowed him to overtake Vettel and Verstappen, with Kimi Raikkonen's second fifth Ferrari and a whopping 1,281.

Daniel Ricciardo was the slowest among the top six, just 0.015 seconds behind Raikkonen.

Esteban Ocon led the & # 39; Class B & # 39; for Racing Point Force India, with a time of 1m30.035 that briefly placed fifth, after showing a steady pace on the midrange during the first runs.

That gave him four tenths faster than Romain Grosjean's Haas, who beat the Sauber Marcus Ericsson driver by 0.038s.

Brendon Hartley, driving for Toro Rosso and benefiting from the upgraded Honda "Spec 3" engine, completed the top 10 at 2,285m pace.

Sergio Perez was 11th in the second Force India, missing the top 10 by eight thousandths of a second.

The recent fall of Renault continued, with Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz finishing 12th and 14th respectively.

They were separated by the Toro Rosso pilot, Pierre Gasly, who left only the last quarter of an hour after what the team described as a fuel cell problem.

He immediately participated in a performance on supersoft, posting a time of 1m30,795 and 10 minutes remaining.

Leclerc, Sauber driver, had a rundown session, including a few off-track moments in the middle of Spoon Curve, before finishing 15th.

His first round of qualifying simulation was compromised by running side by side with Lance Stroll at the chicane, then his second was spoiled by a large moment at the pin.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was 16th ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso, who used the Pirellis soft to make his best lap in 1m30.988s.

Williams, Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll finished 18th and 19th ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne's second McLaren.