It's advantage Mercedes at the end of day one in Melbourne, with Lewis Hamilton completing a clean sweep by staying on top in FP2.
Hamilton clocked in with a 1'23.620 on ultra-soft tyres, a time well inside the pole position he achieved last year.
The three-time world champion was the only driver to end the day under the 1'23 mark, but Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel edged out Valtteri Bottas , with Raikkonen and the Red Bull pair following suit.
Verstappen had an off-track excursion, flying through the gravel trap through Turn 12 after running wide but the real drama came from Jolyon Palmer who lost control of his Renault at Turn 16 on just his fourth lap.
The incident brought out the first red flag of the session. Sauber's Marcus Ericsson spun off towards the end of the session while Haas' Romain Grosjean visited the run-off area twice, with apparently his chronic brake problems the source of the mishap.
Both Toro Rosso's of Carlos Sainz and Dany Kvyat made it into to the top ten which.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Times | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:23.620 | 34 |
| 02 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:24.167 | 35 |
| 03 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1:24.176 | 34 |
| 04 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:24.525 | 30 |
| 05 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 1:24.650 | 27 |
| 06 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:25.013 | 8 |
| 07 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso | 1:25.084 | 34 |
| 08 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 1:25.436 | 29 |
| 09 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1:25.478 | 36 |
| 10 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 1:25.493 | 39 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 1:25.591 | 35 |
| 12 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 1:26.000 | 19 |
| 13 | Esteban Ocon | Force India | 1:26.145 | 37 |
| 14 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 1:26.331 | 6 |
| 15 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 1:26.498 | 29 |
| 16 | Lance Stroll | Williams | 1:26.525 | 27 |
| 17 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | 1:26.608 | 33 |
| 18 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | 1:26.919 | 30 |
| 19 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 1:27.279 | 8 |
| 20 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1:27.549 | 4 |
GALLERY: all the pics from Friday's action
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