Monaco GP: Lewis Hamilton leads second F1 practice before rain hits

Hamilton clocked a 1m17.192s, 0.7 seconds quicker than team-mate Nico Rosberg, with Sebastian Vettel four tenths further adrift in the Ferrari.

The session was only 14 minutes old when Roberto Merhi lost control of his Manor exiting the tunnel before crunching the front wing into the barriers.

The session was red-flagged and though it restarted six minutes later, a few drops of rain was a sign of worse things to come.

Pastor Maldonado ventured out on a set of super-soft tyres, but while it was relatively dry in the pitlane, rain was falling on the east side of the track and Lotus immediately called the Venezuelan back to the pits.

The rain intensified and most drivers got out of their cars and rolled down their overalls as they prepared for a wait.

Eventually, the rain stopped with half an hour to go, but it wasn't until the final 10 minutes that drivers headed back out.

The intermediates were generally the tyre of choice but Mercedes decided to split its programme with Rosberg running the full wets instead.

But conditions remained tricky, with the wet track creating a lot of spray and drivers lapping around 18s slower than in the dry.

As a result, Hamilton's early time - which was 1.6s quicker than his leading time in first practice - kept him top of the pile.

Kimi Raikkonen was fourth fastest, two tenths of a second slower than Ferrari team-mate Vettel, with Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat fifth.

Max Verstappen, who impressed with the second quickest time in first practice on his first visit to Monaco, was seventh, a tenth slower than Toro Rosso team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr.

Fernando Alonso gave McLaren a top 10 placing with eighth, ahead of Force India's Nico Hulkenberg and Lotus's Romain Grosjean.

Sergio Perez was 11th in the second Force India with the Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas 12th and 13th respectively.

Maldonado was 14th, followed McLaren's Jenson Button, Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Sauber's Felipe Nasr.

Manor's Merhi beat team-mate Will Stevens to 18th place before his crash while Marcus Ericsson had an ERS issue and didn't set a lap time.

PRACTICE TWO TIMES: