Nico Rosberg pushed Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton off the top of the timesheets in second practice for the Brazilian Grand Prix on Friday night.

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Hamilton’s preparations for the penultimate race of his champion- ship-winning campaign have been hampered by his mysterious crash in Monaco in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

But the British driver, who has failed to win in Brazil in eight pre- vious outings and is also recovering from a fever here, put his troubles to one side to lead the way on Friday morning.

But Rosberg bounced back emphatically in the second session to finish well ahead of his Mercedes colleague with the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel third in the standings.

Rosberg’s best lap of one minute and 12.385 seconds at the famous Interlagos track was almost half- a-second faster than Hamilton and nearly a full second quicker than Vettel.

The German, who won here last year from pole, also survived a detour at turn 12 in the slippery conditions to end the session com- fortably quickest.

On Thursday, Hamilton revealed a fortnight of “heavy partying” and “not much rest” contributed to him hitting a stationary vehicle while driving his limited edition Pagani Zonda supercar at approximately 3.30am.

He subsequently delayed his flight from Monaco to Sao Paulo by 24 hours, missing a sponsor’s event on Wednesday, and only arriving for this weekend’s race yesterday morning.