Hamilton and Mercedes dominated the training with Red Bull very close
The British driver Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), current champion of the world of Formula One, dominated the second free practice session of the Grand Prix of Australia, as he did in the first. Red Bull with Max Verstappen was less than two thousandths.
Hamilton, with a better record of 1: 23.931, improved by just two tenths his fastest time of the first session, but it was enough to dominate the table of records, which happened to the Dutch Max Verstappen (Red Bull) .127 thousandths, followed by the Finn Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes); the Ferrari of the Finn Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel completed the five fastest times.
The Force India Mexican driver, Sergio PĂ©rez, improved on the morning training, but it was not enough to settle among the top 10 and he finished 12th. The first to set times in this second session was the German Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), eager to amend his performance of the first session, in which his best record was practically one second behind that of Hamilton, followed by his Finnish partner Kimi Raikkonen and the Dutch Red Bull Max Verstappen.
Already with Hamilton and Bottas at the head of the table, and a better record of the Briton still far from the best of the morning (1: 24.569), the pilots began to explore the limits of the track, which caused that several exits of the traced (Bottas, Alonso) both without consequence. After the first hour, most of the pilots returned to the workshops to place the tire ultrablando, the fastest of the available, that Hamilton made profitable to beat for the first time the record of the morning (1: 23.931), although it gave the sensation to degrade very quickly, not giving an option even a quick lap more.Check today's soccer tips on 007soccerpicks.com
After the halfway point of the session, a red flag on the track forced the drivers to return to the garages, although not because of a problem with a car, but because of a cable that was exposed in the area of the finish line. After solving the problem, track times were frozen, giving way to long runs to prepare the race and without major incidents in this second test session for drivers and single-seaters of the new season of Formula One.