Lewis Hamilton has started the season off in fine style after topping the first practice session for this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The four-time champion was over half a second faster than his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Early in the session, Hamilton traded times with the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen on the ultrasoft tyres, before pulling away on his next lap setting his best time a 24.0. Bottas followed that example jumping the Red Bulls.
Verstappen was third fastest in a tight group with both Red Bull’s and Ferrari’s covered by three tenths but had just over a tenth over Kimi Räikkönen. The Finn spilt the Red Bull’s on the soft tyres, going a tenth faster than Sebastian Vettel.
However, the German’s best lap was ruined after running wide at turn thirteen.
Ricciardo rounded off the top six of the three fastest teams a quarter of a second behind his teammate. Both Red Bull and Ferrari have brought upgrades for this weekend, but they don’t have appeared too caught up with the Mercedes.
While the top three teams looked comfortably ahead, a good performance from Romain Grosjean put him seventh fastest ahead of the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. But like in testing, the British team again hit setbacks because of an exhaust issue.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports “The first session was as expected. We didn’t see the Ferraris on the tyres we’ve been running, so we need a little more time to understand, but it’s a decent start.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner added “Reasonably positive. There is nothing too far from what we expected from testing. The drivers seem reasonably confident and the car is quick here.”
Both Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne spent most of the first hour in the garage, the Belgian driver suffering from a “driveability” issues. Alonso went eight fastest with Vandoorne rounding out the top ten, the duo being spilt by the Renault of Carlos Sainz.
Sergey Sirotkin set the first time of the season in the Williams, ending the session twelfth fastest ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Force India’s Esteban Ocon.
It was a disappointing start for Ocon and his team, as while they expected to be off the pace, they were further behind than they had expected. With Sergio Perez and Ocon spilt by the Williams of Lance Stroll.
Brendon Hartley finished eighteenth ahead of both Sauber’s, with Marcus Ericsson ahead of Charles Leclerc.
RELATED
3 Comments