Lewis Hamilton remains the man to beat in Barcelona, setting the fastest time in second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The British driver improved to a 1m20.802s, as the drivers completed the first qualifying-style runs on the soft compound tyres. He was less than a tenth of a second clear of Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes, as the world champions again hinted at the gain in performance they have made.

The two Ferrari's were able to get quite a bit closer than the had in the morning, with Kimi Raikkonen three-tenths behind in third and the lead of the two Scuderia drivers again.

Red Bull also showed their first signs of progress, with Max Verstappen just two-tenths slower than Sebastian Vettel in fifth and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo completing the top six.

Renault inserted themselves as the leading team in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg seventh, only a tenth shy of the Australian in front and a third of a second clear of his team-mate Jolyon Palmer in eighth.

Felipe Massa once again put his Williams in the mix in ninth, as local favourite Carlos Sainz maintained the 10th place he had finished in the morning.

Much of the session evolved around the switch to the soft compound, as, like the hard earlier, the medium tyres did not offer the grip that was needed. Indeed, drivers were finding well over two seconds in performance between the two types of rubber, although some of that was also fuel and engine mode related.

A gusty wind also made conditions very tricky, as Verstappen highlighted with a high-speed trip across the gravel at Turn 9 early on, as well as off-track excursions for Bottas and Vettel during their race simulation.

There was only one incident that caused disruption, however, as pieces of carbon fibre broke off Sainz's Toro Rosso running over the kerb at Turn 9 and a red flag was needed to safely remove the debris.

Outside the top 10, Haas and Force India will be looking to find improvements as their drivers filled four of the five positions between P11 and P15. The other car was Stoffel Vandoorne's McLaren, with the Belgian managing a normal, trouble-free day as he claimed the same 13th place that he had done in practice one.

Marcus Ericsson continued his good start to the weekend in 16th for Sauber, beating the Williams of Lance Stroll and Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso. Pascal Wehrlein was 19th in the second Sauber, with Fernando Alonso able to complete some running, after the engine failure in the morning, but still bringing up the field.