Lewis Hamilton topped a rain-hit second practice session at the Monaco Grand Prix as teams were forced to cram as much track time as possible into the first 30 minutes of dry running.
Heavy rain swept into the Monaco harbor shortly after Roberto Mehri crashed his Manor at the Nouvelle Chicane, causing a red flag. Mehri lost the rear of the car under braking as he came out of the tunnel and swiped the Manor's nose off against the barrier. The rain then resulted in an absence of cars for 50 minutes, although Pastor Maldonado braved a lap on the super-softs shortly before the heavens opened. He was the only driver to try the softer compound, but the conditions meant the time was not representative.
Up until that point the track had been busy with long snaking traffic jams of F1 cars as 19 drivers vied for space to set a quick lap. Marcus Ericsson was the only driver not to set a time after his Sauber failed to make it out of the garage for the entire 90 minutes.
Hamilton's time of 1:17.192 was over 1.5s faster than his FP1 time and stood proud at the top of the timesheets by 0.740s when the rain came. Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg managed two more laps than Hamilton in the dry, but his best effort was only good enough for a 1:17.932. The top four had a familiar look to it, with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in third and fourth ahead of Daniil Kvyat in fifth and Carlos Sainz in sixth. Max Verstappen was seventh fastest after shaving a tenth off his impressive FP1 time.
Fernando Alonso continued to give McLaren a glimmer of hope with the eighth fastest time and was one of the first drivers to return to the track for a run on inters in the final ten minutes. Most of the rest of the grid joined him on track for a sighter lap in the wet, but despite some impressive power slides out of the slow-speed corners no one got anywhere near their laps in the dry.
Honourable mentions should go to the Force India drivers after Nico Hulkenberg finished ninth and Sergio Perez 11th in the recalcitrant VJM08, but that is a reflection of the mixed conditions and limited dry running rather than the true pace of the car.