Hamilton heads Magnussen, trouble for Haas

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time on the second morning of the final pre-season testing, heading Kevin Magnussen's Renault.

With Mercedes running both drivers on each day of the second test, the team gave Hamilton some qualifying runs late in the morning as it had with Nico Rosberg on Tuesday. Hamilton set the pace on soft tyres with a 1:23.622 which left him 0.6s slower than Rosberg's best, though the triple world champion only set one personal best sector on his lap.

Hamilton's effort came with half an hour of the morning session still to run and saw him replace Magnussen at the top of the times. The Renault driver is in the car for the last time before the Australian Grand Prix, and duly tried the supersoft tyre on two occasions to post a time which ended up 0.311s slower than Hamilton.

Sebastian Vettel was third on a more encouraging morning for Ferrari, finishing the session within a second of Hamilton's time and managing a lap total just 10 laps shy of Mercedes.

Ferrari may have some concerns regarding reliability, however, as both of its 2016 customer teams failed to set a time. Haas had recovered from a fuel system issue overnight to complete an installation lap first thing, but the team had concerns regarding a new turbocharger and did not complete another lap in the first four hours.

Sauber fared little better, with Marcus Ericsson not appearing until mid-way through the session and only completing three laps before being confined to the garage until five minutes before the lunch break. The Swede did appear in the closing moments and managed to post a time.

McLaren tested some new aero parts on Wednesday morning and Jenson Button was fifth quickest behind Valtteri Bottas following a soft tyre lap, leaving the Williams, McLaren and Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull covered by less than 0.1s. Red Bull carried out a number of practice pit stops during the morning session, with few of its 42 laps being complete circuits.