Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finished comfortably clear of the pack during an eventful second practice session for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton, having led the way in Friday lunchtime’s first session, clocked a time of 1:23.620, as the pack conducted qualifying simulations on the purple-banded Ultra Soft tyres.
Hamilton’s effort was 0.547s quicker than Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, whose lap, posted shortly after Hamilton’s run, was sufficient to ensure he split the Mercedes drivers, as Valtteri Bottas wound up third.
Bottas was just 0.009s adrift of Vettel, while compatriot Kimi Räikkönen finished further back in fourth place, 0.905s behind Hamilton.
Neither Red Bull driver troubled the top of the timesheets, with Daniel Ricciardo over a second down on Hamilton in fifth, while Max Verstappen took sixth.
Verstappen encountered a wild grassy excursion through the high-speed left-hander at Turn 12 as he drifted wide after missing the apex, briefly bouncing through the gravel, before returning to the pits.
The Dutch youngster sustained damage to the floor of his RB13 in the incident, ending his session prematurely, meaning he did not undertake longer runs.
Carlos Sainz Jr. took seventh, shortly behind former team-mate Verstappen, as he finished clear of a close gaggle of cars, which was led by Haas’ Romain Grosjean.
Grosjean, who did not run the T-wing on his VF-17, had two off-track moments, the second a trip through the Turn 3 gravel after locking up his right front tyre, but recovered later on to finish eighth.
The Frenchman was closely followed by Renault’s Nico Hülkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and the Force India of Sergio Pérez, in the newly-liveried VJM10.
McLaren-Honda’s Fernando Alonso spent time in the garage early on before emerging and going 12th, 2.380s behind Hamilton, with team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne only 17th.
Esteban Ocon took 13th, while Felipe Massa was 14th, his session truncated when his FW40 went into neutral, which halted him at Turn 10 shortly before his Ultra Soft effort.
Marcus Ericsson was the highest-placed Sauber driver in 15th position, but ended his session in the Turn 6 gravel after losing the rear of the C36-Ferrari under braking during the closing stages, causing the Virtual Safety Car to be activated.
Williams rookie Lance Stroll was 16th, ahead of the aforementioned Vandoorne and Ericsson’s team-mate Pascal Wehrlein.
Haas’ Kevin Magnussen spent the bulk of the session in the garage due to a water leak in his VF-17.
Magnussen was able to return to action but was forced to come back into the pit lane soon after with a recurrence of the issue, before making an appearance during the final few minutes.
Jolyon Palmer’s difficult day deteriorated further just 25 minutes into the second session when he crashed heavily through the final corner.
Palmer, whose running in the opening session was restricted due to a seal issue, lost control of the rear of the RS.17 early into the turn, and careered into the wall.
Palmer was uninjured in the incident, though the session was red-flagged while the wreckage was removed, and the damage to Palmer’s car meant he did not re-emerge from the garage.
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