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Lewis Hamilton threw down the gauntlet during Free Practice 2 at Albert Park setting a fastest lap of 1:23.620.
It smashed his own lap from qualifying last year (1:23.837), and came tantalisingly short of claiming the fastest lap that Albert Park has even seen.
With qualifying simulations during FP3 and Saturday’s much anticipated qualifying session still to come, there’s absolutely no question that we will see the records tumble as the fastest ever cars on an F1 track.
Although Hamilton is clearly the man to catch, Sebastian Vettel threw a spanner in Mercedes works by splitting their drivers with a time only 0.5 seconds behind Hamilton and 0.1s ahead of Valtteri Bottas in P3.
Vettel is confident that Ferrari have the pace to catch Mercedes if they can address their balance issues.
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Although there’s no reason for the panic in the Mercedes camp, Bottas’ nervous first day in the office will now become a focus of their program for the weekend. Giving Bottas the assistance he needs to keep pace with Lewis will be crucial if they are to maximise their race weekend by scoring a 1-2 finish.
FP2 also reinforced the idiom that experience doesn’t count for much in Formula One, with both young Renault driver Jolyon Palmer and veteran Felipe Massa completing only a few laps before retiring from the session.
Palmer lost traction accelerating out of Turn 16 into the front straight, unable to correct and ended his session hitting the wall, facing the wrong direction.
Massa on the other hand simply lost power and had to retire from the session after completing only six laps.
“I went into neutral and couldn’t select any gears, which meant that I lost the opportunity to try the ultrasoft tyres and do any long runs,” explained Massa.
“It’s a shame that we did thousands of kilometres in Barcelona and then had this issue here, but I don’t think it’s a serious thing, which is positive. We need to concentrate 100 per cent tomorrow and I really hope things can go the right way.”
Massa’s breakdown is a massive headache for Williams. A solid session from him would have helped them set up both his own car and that of his rookie teammate Lance Stroll. The eighteen year old Canadian comes into the race with a question mark over his name following numerous crashes during the pre-season.
A number of factors have contributed to the mouth-watering laps times being thrown down by the front runners.
Pirelli’s ultrasoft tyres — which offer drivers untold grip and thus faster lap times — successfully spiced up racing strategies at numerous Grands Prix last year, and make their Australian debut this year.
As well as being having additional grip at their fingertips, all tyres this year are unmistakably wider. This along with various aerodynamic modifications have unleashed the latent potential of the current generation of F1 machinery.
Interestingly, the characteristics of the laps have changed. Although the overall lap times have been reduced we’re seeing slower top speeds down the straights due to the additional weight and width of the cars and the accompanying drag and fuel consumption.
These deficits are more than compensated however by vastly increased cornering speeds, with drivers estimated to attack Albert Park’s chicane at Turns 11 and 12 with an estimated additional 35kph.
Although they are typically the darlings of aerodynamics, it appears that Red Bull are not simply being modest when insisting they are the underdogs. With the hopes of the national on his shoulders, Dan Ricciardo is languishing more than one full second behind Hamilton’s fastest time.
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