Melbourne: Mercedes confirmed its status as favourite to win the Formula One season-opening Australian Grand Prix by setting the fastest two times in Friday's practice sessions, with Lewis Hamilton edging his team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Hamilton failed to complete a lap in the opening practice session due to a malfunctioning oil pressure sensor which shut down his engine, but recovered to set a time of 1 minute 29.625 seconds in the second session around the Albert Park circuit, 0.157 seconds ahead of Rosberg.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari was fastest in the first session but dropped to third in the second, half a second off Hamilton's time but a quarter of a second ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who is beginning his campaign for a fifth straight drivers' championship.
While it was unusual to see Vettel placed anywhere but number one in any session, Friday's practice represented a big step forward for Red Bull after a difficult offseason in which it was plagued by problems with the sport's new V6 turbo hybrid engines.
Vettel and new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo - who was sixth fastest - completed a total of 115 laps, which will provide valuable data on the car and engine's performance.
By contrast, fellow Renault-powered teams Lotus and Caterham did very little running due to a succession of technical problems, coupled with some spins into the gravel traps by Lotus drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado.
There has been concern that those two teams, and perhaps others, will sit out Saturday's final practice session to avoid encountering a problem that takes a long time to fix - as many do with these new complex engines - and therefore having to miss both qualifying and the race.
McLaren driver Jenson Button was fifth fastest in Friday's practice and his rookie team-mate Kevin Magnussen was ninth.
Kimi Raikkonen was seventh in his first appearance since returning to Ferrari, while Williams driver Valtteri Bottas was eighth and Force India's Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top ten.
Comments
0 comment