Williams driver Felipe Massa was fastest in Friday's rain-hit second practice session for the Russian Grand Prix as only eight drivers posted a competitive time in the torrid conditions.
With dry weather forecast for the remainder of the weekend in Sochi, a number of drivers, including world champion Lewis Hamilton, sat out the second session.
Massa's best lap of 2:00:45 was two-tenths of a second quicker than the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel with Valtteri Bottas, in the other Williams, third.
Fernando Alonso, who was fifth fastest, was the only driver to complete more than eight laps, in the 90-minute session watched by a small collection of brave fans.
The morning session in Sochi was also disrupted after a bizarre diesel spillage which delayed the on-track action by 30 minutes.
Organisers of the race, which runs through Sochi's Olympic Park, were left deeply embarrassed by the incident, which was caused by a truck deployed to sweep the track, and vowed to launch an internal probe.
Track marshals and officials attempted to clean up the spillage by hosing down the affected areas with water, but it seemed to do little to aid the situation.
Vettel appeared to sum up the farcical mood, saying "what a mess" as he passed through the scene of the spillage in sectors two and three on intermediate tyres when the session eventually got under way.
Race promoter Sergey Vorobyev said: "All the practice sessions are running according to schedule, so the incident is not critical.
"There was a diesel spill and it took us some time to clean it - which caused the delay. There will be an investigation and it is an internal matter now."
Alonso was the first driver to take to the circuit on slick tyres with 30 minutes of the opening practice session remaining.
And with a little over 10 minutes left, he was one of just four drivers who had posted a competitive lap - indeed it was his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button who headed the timesheets in the slippery conditions.
But as the affected areas of the track began to dry out, the rest of the pack emerged from the garages.
When the chequered flag fell it was Nico Hulkenberg who led the way in his Force India, but his best time of one minute and 44.355 seconds was the best part of six seconds slower than Hamilton's pole lap here last year.
Hamilton, who heads into Sunday's race with a 48-point lead over Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in the championship, set his first timed lap with just five minutes remaining.
The Briton spun at turn 17 on his final run but avoided any contact with the barriers. He ended the session 1.4 seconds adrift of Hulkenberg in seventh place.
Hulkenberg was 0.052 secs faster than Rosberg while Vettel, who also spun in the testing track conditions, was third fastest.
