Australian GP Friday practice
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By: Geoff Creighton
Summary
Status: Stopped
Here’s our report from FP2. Join us again for live coverage from 3am GMT tomorrow if you also believe sleep is overrated. In the meantime check out all the reaction to the start of the 2019 season throughout the day on Autosport and Motorsport.com. 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1rhLAxXgAADj2H.jpg"/>On top Down Under 🏁 Lewis ends Friday P1 with a 1:22.600, while Valtteri is P3 with a 1:22.648. #AusGP 🐨 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1rhLAxXgAADj2H.jpg
Rest of the field: 11 Kvyat, 12 Magnussen, 13 Stroll, 14 Sainz, 15 Giovinazzi, 16 Perez, 17 Albon, 18 Norris, 19 Russell, 20 Kubica.
Top 10: 1 Hamilton, 2 Bottas, 3 Verstappen, 4 Gasly, 5 Vettel, 6 Raikkonen, 7 Hulkenberg, 8 Ricciardo, 9 Leclerc, 10 Grosjean.
"Problem, problem, no power," Gasly reports again. Sudden re-occurrence of engine issues for Red Bull?
Interesting changes from Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes - here's Giorgio Piola's pick of F1 teams' upgrades for the Australian GP. 
"Problem with the engine, I lost power after Turn 9," Gasly reports. He is told "we can keep going".
Under six minutes on the clock now, it'll almost certainly be a comfortable Mercedes 1-2 to end Friday's running.
"There are some weird upshifts, look at it, I suspect something is wrong," Leclerc reports. Sandbagging or not, they've not had the smoothest session over at Ferrari.
Hulkenberg is asked about the state of the tyres, says they're "not super-fresh but okay for a couple more laps". The tyres in question are softs that are over 20 laps old, so that's, uhhh, very encouraging for the show on Sunday.
Verstappen has another go on softs, posing a personal-best second sector, but the overall lap is three tenths slower than what he'd managed earlier.
"Okay, I flatspotted the tyre big-time, let's think about boxing, no point to continue," Kvyat says.
Verstappen's first flying lap on softs takes him past Gasly, but only by around half a tenth. He's eight tenths off Hamilton.
Albon has been off at Turn 15, causing yellow flags. He has now rejoined, but he's having a tough first day in a grand prix weekend.
Ricciardo has had a pretty big drop-off on his race pace, and is asking the team whether others are having the same issue.
"Drinks system check, drinks system check," Kvyat is told. "I don't have it, you didn't put it," is his answer, to which the response is "copy". Great conversation all around.
Vettel is in the low-1m28s margin, Leclerc in the mid-1m28s, Gasly and Hulkenberg now in the high-1m28s. Obviously we don't know anything about fuel loads or anything like that.
Of the teams that are into their long-run programmes, Gasly, Hulkenberg, Raikkonen and Leclerc are all around 1m29s.
Verstappen's into the pits with half an hour to go, so presumably - hopefully - he'll be having a go on fresh softs next.
Hulkenberg wants the upshift lights adjusted on his steering wheel, as he's "shifting a bit too late".
Norris makes our earlier prediction of McLaren moving up the order look foolhardy - his first lap on softs is 2.1s off and he stays P17.
"We picked up some s**t on the rear tyres from the pitlane, so there was absolutely no grip," Raikkonen tells his Alfa Romeo team.
Norris heads out now on softs, with Sainz presumably to follow suit soon, so the McLarens should be able to move up the order.
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