Australian GP: Hamilton beats Vettel to top FP3
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.
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
After topping Friday practice and enjoying a huge advantage over the next-fastest team, Hamilton continued his good form into FP3 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 from Maranello 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 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 were towards the foot of the top 10 as Max Verstappen ended the session ninth.
Daniel Ricciardo completed the top 10, less than half a tenth clear of his Renault teammate 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 saw McLaren fined €5000 for an unsafe release.
Session results
Cla | # | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | Mercedes | 12 | 1'22.292 | |
2 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | Ferrari | 12 | 1'22.556 | 0.264 |
3 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | Ferrari | 12 | 1'22.749 | 0.457 |
4 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | Ferrari | 17 | 1'23.112 | 0.820 |
5 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | Ferrari | 15 | 1'23.334 | 1.042 |
6 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Red Bull | Honda | 17 | 1'23.367 | 1.075 |
7 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | Mercedes | 17 | 1'23.422 | 1.130 |
8 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | Honda | 16 | 1'23.442 | 1.150 |
9 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | Honda | 19 | 1'23.481 | 1.189 |
10 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | Renault | 14 | 1'23.695 | 1.403 |
11 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | Renault | 15 | 1'23.737 | 1.445 |
12 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 16 | 1'23.831 | 1.539 |
13 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jr. | McLaren | Renault | 21 | 1'24.049 | 1.757 |
14 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Racing Point | Mercedes | 18 | 1'24.082 | 1.790 |
15 | 23 | Alex Albon | Toro Rosso | Honda | 15 | 1'24.328 | 2.036 |
16 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point | Mercedes | 16 | 1'24.345 | 2.053 |
17 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 18 | 1'24.402 | 2.110 |
18 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | Renault | 16 | 1'24.568 | 2.276 |
19 | 63 | George Russell | Williams | Mercedes | 14 | 1'25.944 | 3.652 |
20 | 88 | Robert Kubica | Williams | Mercedes | 16 | 1'26.589 | 4.297 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments