After his lap beats Ferrari drivers to pole Lewis Hamilton teases rival Sebastian Vettel at the Australian Grand Prix first practice
Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton paced teammate Valtteri
Bottas with just over 1/2 a sec. and Red Bull's Max Verstappen till the final runs
of the session kicking off the 2018 Formula 1 season and to set the quickest
time in open practice for the Australian Grand Prix.
After Hamilton stormed to first position by means of over 1/2
sec he was requested to give an explanation of how he won nearly a 2nd in Q3
compared to Q2 and denied his W09 car had a "celebration mode" for
qualifying.
"I used the same mode from Q2 through to the last of
Q3," stated Hamilton. "There was no extra button, no extra
mode."
Vettel, who finished the session 3rd took
exception and asked the Englishman: "What have you been doing before
then?"
Nonetheless Hamilton replied: "I was waiting to put a
good lap in to wipe the smile off your face."
Sebastian Vettel changed into the first car to hit the Melbourne
track and led the initial burst of set up runs; however it took 20 minutes for
any person to set a time.
Williams’s rookie Sergey Sirotkin started the first flying lap
but his 1m 32.057 secs did not stand as the benchmark for long.
Wow, it feels so good kicking off 2018 with Pole Position! Thank you to the Team for your continued hard work. Sights are on the race tomorrow... #AusGP #F1 #Pole @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/a5tnLsvp6f— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) March 24, 2018
The big teams started out to make their mark Within 5 mins, with Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas in short going quickest earlier afore the Red Bulls hit the front.
Top spot was grabbed by Max Verstappen twice from team-mate Daniel Ricciardo - disturbed through Hamilton's first spell atop the times - and the first driver to dip under the 1m25s mark, on a 1m24.959s was Verstappen.
On the session Hamilton stamped his authority no longer than the 1/2-hour mark, first lapping zero.022s faster than Verstappen after which enhancing to 1m24.531s.
Bottas emerged on a new set of ultrasofts and lapped 0.046s slower than Hamilton after the mid-session activity, but Hamilton hit back with a 1m24.026s to go half a second clear.
After Friday's practice sessions, 2nd and 3rd on the day was a good result for Ferrari after Friday's practice periods seemed to suggest Red Bull had changed them to become the Silver Arrow's competitors in chief.
Prompting Vettel who said "It's a great role to be in,". "Hopefully we will preserve the pressure the next day."
