Lewis Hamilton’s feeling '99 per cent perfect’ as he leads the way for Mercedes in Australia

Sign here | Hamilton greeting fans in Melbourne
Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton lived up to his pre-season billing as favourite for a fourth Formula One drivers’ title with a dominant display across the two opening practice sessions for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

Hopes that Mercedes’ rivals might have closed the gap in Melbourne were quickly extinguished as the Briton topped both sessions by more than half a second.

Hamilton’s new team-mate Valtteri Bottas was his closest challenger in the opening session — 0.583 seconds adrift — while Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel clocked the second quickest time in the ensuing session — 0.547s behind pacesetter Hamilton.

Hamilton described his opening day as “99 per cent perfect”. He said: “After struggling with some issues in Barcelona, we didn’t know if we’d have the same thing here. But the car is exactly where it should be. It’s feeling great out there and the guys have done a fantastic job.”

A bullish Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff described the session as “one of the best Fridays of quick runs” but pointed out that practice, compared to the race on Sunday, is “a day that doesn’t really matter”.

For Formula One’s rule makers, who had introduced a host of technical changes this season partly in the hope it would level the playing field, Hamilton’s stand-out display is in some ways ominous.

Practice is not always entirely a reflection of true pace, which will come to fruition in qualifying tomorrow, but Ferrari will be concerned that Kimi Raikkonen was about a second off the pace, while Red Bull Racing appear to be the third-ranked team — as pre-season testing had suggested.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said: “Lewis is the absolute favourite. He was the favourite coming here and today’s timings underline that.”

Just 24 hours earlier, Hamilton had predicted a six-way battle for the drivers’ championship. He goes into qualifying devoid of his only challenger in recent seasons, Nico Rosberg, who retired after winning last year’s world title.

Rosberg’s replacement, Bottas, was marginally off the pace but that was perhaps unsurprising, with the Finn having had just days in the car compared to Hamilton’s three years with the team.

Wolff is confident former Williams driver Bottas can emulate Rosberg. He said: “It’s very big shoes to fill. Nico is the reigning world champion and Valtteri has to fill those shoes.

“He has a couple of days’ testing behind him, which were very positive. Today was the first proper day of a race weekend.

“In terms of mindset, he has settled in very well to the team and he has got to benchmark himself against the best driver in Formula One during this time.

“I’m very confident that he’ll find the pace and earn his place in the team.”

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