Lewis Hamilton was hailed as being “in a league of his own” on Friday as he burned off his rivals in the year’s opening practice sessions at the Australian Grand Prix.
The triple world champion bossed the field and held a half-second gap over Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and his new Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas in the afternoon session.
Hamilton followed up his field-leading fastest lap of 1 minute, 24.220 secs in the morning run with a blistering 1:23.620 in the late afternoon.
“Hamilton is in a league of his own at the moment,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said. “His one-lap pace was really good and he took the ultra-softs for 17 laps and was stable. I'm happy.”
Ferrari was expected to press Hamilton after superior times in pre-season testing, but on the evidence of the opening two sessions, Hamilton is again the driver to beat.
“I'm super-happy to be back in the car, particularly after a first day like that. It was 99 percent perfect,” Hamilton said.
Ferrari improved markedly on their opening practice, with Vettel unleashing the second best lap time in FP2 with 1:24.167 while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was fourth with 1:24.525.
The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were over a second behind Hamilton and half-a-second off Vettel’s Ferrari.
Verstappen missed out on the later long runs after damaging his car's floor when running over the gravel on the exit of turn 10.
“I had a bit of understeer, so went off the track and damaged the floor,” Verstappen said. “We are where I expected us to be.”
The second session was stopped after a big crash for Renault’s Jolyon Palmer, who lost the rear of his car on the last corner and spun into the barriers. “I'm fine,” Palmer told his team over the radio.
The troubled McLaren team had no on-track breakdowns on the opening day with Fernando Alonso finishing in a respectable 12th place.
