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Australian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton completes practice sweep

Lewis Hamilton completed his domination of Australian Grand Prix practice, as Mercedes maintained an advantage over Ferrari ahead of the first qualifying session of the new Formula 1 season

After topping Friday practice and enjoying a huge advantage over the next-fastest team, Hamilton continued his good form into the third session on Saturday afternoon.

He hit the head of the times as soon as he pumped in a first flying lap and regained the advantage on the two occasions he was briefly bumped back.

The first came seconds after Valtteri Bottas had completed a second flying lap, and the next came when Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel used new soft tyres to go quickest.

Hamilton's second run on new softs yielded a 1m22.292s, enough to beat Vettel by 0.264s.

Charles Leclerc completed Ferrari's rise from the foot of the top 10 to go third-fastest, 0.457s, but Mercedes appears to have its rival at arm's length heading into qualifying.

The only blip for Mercedes was Bottas's failure to set a true time on his second set of new tyres.

He ran wide exiting the penultimate corner and got sideways after touching the grass, which limited him to a 1m23.422s - only good enough for seventh.

That, combined with a surprisingly muted session from Red Bull, allowed Haas duo Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen to steal in and take fourth and fifth in the times.

Grosjean was 0.820s slower than Mercedes, two tenths clear of Magnussen, who in turn was a few hundredths clear of Pierre Gasly in the lead Red Bull.

Daniil Kvyat set the eighth-fastest time in the Toro Rosso, indicating the Honda engine was not the reason Red Bull was towards the foot of the top 10 as Max Verstappen ended the session ninth.

Red Bull did spend the majority of the session on the medium tyres, only taking the softs for a final sprint at the end.

Daniel Ricciardo completed the top 10, less than half a tenth clear of his Renault team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.

At the tail of the field, Williams remains detached from the midfield battle.

George Russell was the team's quickest driver again, outpacing Robert Kubica by six tenths but lapping 3.6s off the pace and 1.4s behind McLaren's Lando Norris in 18th.

Kubica slapped the pitwall when he ran wide entering the pitlane, scattering a small amount of debris.

He was also involved in a pitlane incident with Norris that left the McLaren driver being called to the stewards for an unsafe release. The team was fined €5000.

Practice three times

Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m22.292s - 12
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m22.556s 0.264s 12
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1m22.749s 0.457s 12
4 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m23.112s 0.820s 17
5 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m23.334s 1.042s 15
6 Pierre Gasly Red Bull/Honda 1m23.367s 1.075s 17
7 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m23.422s 1.130s 17
8 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Honda 1m23.442s 1.150s 16
9 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1m23.481s 1.189s 19
10 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1m23.695s 1.403s 14
11 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m23.737s 1.445s 15
12 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1m23.831s 1.539s 16
13 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren/Renault 1m24.049s 1.757s 21
14 Sergio Perez Racing Point/Mercedes 1m24.082s 1.790s 18
15 Alexander Albon Toro Rosso/Honda 1m24.328s 2.036s 15
16 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 1m24.345s 2.053s 16
17 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1m24.402s 2.110s 18
18 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 1m24.568s 2.276s 16
19 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1m25.944s 3.652s 14
20 Robert Kubica Williams/Mercedes 1m26.589s 4.297s 16


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