Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen to the top of the timesheet in second practice ahead of the Formula 1 season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton, who headed the times during the opening practice session, posted a 1m23.931s on the ultrasoft tyre. He was the only driver to dip below the 1m24s mark.
Verstappen finished second for Red Bull having ended his qualifying simulation run 0.127 seconds behind pace-setter Hamilton. When running the soft compound tyre in the opening stages of the session, Verstappen was a mere 0.016s down on a supersoft-shod Hamilton.
Valtteri Bottas ended the day in third. He suffered two excursions during the session; one while completing his race simulation run at Turn 9, and the other after having made a trip through the gravel having been wrong-footed by a slow Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 3.
Raikkonen and Bottas have been called to the stewards to discuss the incident. Raikkonen finished the session fourth ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who was 0.520s adrift of Hamilton.
Vettel was one of the first drivers to complete a qualifying simulation and, therefore, did not benefit from the rapid track evolution.
Romain Grosjean demonstrated excellent pace for Haas, finishing sixth.
He edged Daniel Ricciardo, with the Red Bull driver having had to abort his qualifying simulation run when a red flag was deployed for a loose timing wire on the pit-straight. Ricciardo was only 0.25s down on Hamilton through the second sector when he was forced to abort the run.
Fernando Alonso finished eighth for McLaren. The team attempted to low fuel runs on the ultrasoft tyre but Alonso was unable to improve on his second lap. Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top 10.
Lance Stroll, who ended the session 14th for Williams, was forced to stop the car at Turn 9 while on his way back to the pits at the end of the session. The cause of the stoppage is yet to be confirmed by anticipated to be cooling related.
Sauber was once again the team at the foot of the times. Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc were separated by 0.001s.
