Australian GP: Hamilton fastest in FP1 as new era gets underway

Lewis Hamilton topped a Mercedes one-two in in the opening practice session for the first race of the new Formula 1 season in Australia. 

Both Hamilton and new team-mate Valtteri Bottas were quickly on the pace, and Hamilton's best time was a 1:24.220s, 0.583s fastest than the Finn could manage in the sister W08.

Behind the two Mercedes, came the two Red Bull's home favourite Daniel Ricciardo getting the better of team-mate Max Verstappen. 

Both the RB13's completed their fastest times on the supersoft tyre, whilst the two Mercedes drivers did so on the fastest, softer ultrasofts, which accounts for some of the 0.666s gap between Hamilton and Ricciardo. 

Ferrari had a quiet morning, sticking to their run plan with Kimi Raikkonen, whilst Sebastian Vettel's running was interupted with a DRS issue that cost him valuable track time. They completed the Noah's Ark feel to the top six, the Finn getting the better of the German, albeit a full second down the benchmark of Hamilton.

Taking it easy  

As the new cars hit the track for the first time, with Haas's Romain Grosjean having the honour of being first driver out, the speed of the new cars was immediately apparent during the initial installation laps. 

After a brief lull, the cars returned to track, with Canadian rookie Lance Stroll in the Williams completing the first timed lap of the new season. 

Running was at a premimum in the early stages, with drivers not wanting to go out onto the dusty track or waste mileage on their power units, seeing as they only have four to last the 20 races this season. 

After completing a lap, down into turn one, Ricciardo had a little off, and ran across the inside of the grass, in the highlight of the session, which was mainly used to bed in new car developments, espicially on the Aussie's Red Bull and get used to the new tyres and refining set-up for the race on Sunday. 

In the sister car, Verstappen reported a gear-box sync issue, but this didn't hamper the Dutchman who completed 19 laps. 

Felipe Massa proved to be best of the rest in the Williams, although interestingly, both Grosjean's Haas and Nico Hulkenberg's Renault were timed to within 0.041s of the Brazilian's FW40. 

In his new pink Force India, Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10, just getting the better of Carlos Sainz's Toro Rosso. 

Good morning for McLaren

Between them, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne completed 34 laps and collected valuable data for McLaren. 

The car looked good through the fast sweeps of turn 11 and 12, but was visibly slow on the straights. They finished the session 14th and 20th respectivly, although laps and not times is the key for McLaren as they seek to recover from a wretched winter. 

The only issue was a water pressure problem for Vandoorne, which the team quickly fixed. 

Elsewhere, both Sauber's had a quiet morning, whilst Esteban Ocon's debut in the Force India was hampered with a brake problem, but still completed 23 laps, which was 17 more than Jolyon Palmer in the Renault, whose gearbox seal broke and limited him to just six laps and P19 on the timing sheets.