New cars, new rules and new driver pairings but it was a familiar face at the top as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was the man to beat in Friday practice, setting the fastest time of FP1 at Albert Park on the ultra-soft tyres.
Hamilton’s 1m24.220 put him top of the timesheets, over half a second clear of new Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who briefly led the way early on in the session.
Australian home hero Daniel Ricciardo was just behind Bottas in third, driving the updated, aggressively designed RB13. The Red Bull opted for the super-soft tyres like the majority of the other Formula 1 teams in first practice.
Ricciardo led team-mate Max Verstappen, whose running was disrupted at the start due to a gearbox issue while Ferrari left its running later on as they waited for the track to ramp up.
Kimi Raikkonen’s best time was good enough for fifth place, 1.1s off Hamilton’s benchmark with Sebastian Vettel just a further tenth back from his team-mate.
Like in pre-season testing, Felipe Massa led the tight midfield pack for Williams with just four-tenths of a second separating the Brazilian in seventh and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat in 12th.
Haas’ Romain Grosjean, Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and Force India’s Sergio Perez were all within a tenth of Massa’s benchmark on the super-soft tyres.
Formula 1’s new boy Lance Stroll was well behind his more experienced team-mate but enjoyed an error-free session on his way to 13th fastest.
It was a troubled session for both Jolyon Palmer and Stoffel Vandoorne who suffered a split CV boot and a loss of water pressure respectively.
Esteban Ocon in the second Force India also suffered from a brake issue which hampered his early running but got back out on track later on and set the 16th fastest time of the day.
FP2 gets underway at 0500 GMT.
