Hamilton enjoys Friday clean sweep!

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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Grégory Demoen

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