Australian GP, ​​Practice One: Lewis Hamilton clip Sebastian Vettel

Hamilton leads the Ferrari Vettel and Leclerc, with Verstappen also in the mix; Alex Albon turns Toro Rosso, while Williams wrestles

Lewis Hamilton dominated the first F1 training session of the new season while Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull proved very close during the first round of the Australian GP weekend.

Mercedes and Ferrari were divided by less than a tenth of a second, Max Verstappen still having a tenth return for Red Bull.

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Hamilton's record time of 1: 23.599 was only 0.038 seconds faster than his ever-Ferrari rival, Sebastian Vettel, with Charles Leclerc just behind his new teammate in third.

The fast pace of Verstappen in the new Red Bull-Honda also encourages the new partnership to start the weekend.

"This session reinforced the point of view that the top three are very close, then there is about a second back to the midfielder, who is also very close," said Martin Brundle of Sky F1.

Valtteri Bottas was at the top of the standings at the start of the session but slipped to fifth place in the second Mercedes, the Finn leaving the circuit at the penultimate corner.

1:03

P1: Bottas sector 3 boom

The midfielder is also close, but Williams has gone astray
Kimi Raikkonen was a promising sixth for the Alfa Romeo team, with the return of Daniil Kvyat, seventh for Toro Rosso.

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But the struggles expected of Williams early in the season seem to have been revealed in the first test session while their two cars trailed more than four seconds behind.

After delays in the team's test program followed by technical boss Paddy Lowe on leave last week, Williams finished 19th and 20th in the opening session and clearly has a lot of work to do.

1:28

Toro Rosso's Alexander Albon spun during the first training, leading to the red flag of the session.

Alex Albon, Toro Rosso's rookie, was the first rider to break through this season as he competed midway through the session. The British-born driver broke the front wing of his car, but was able to return to the booth stand.

As expected, the midfield teams looked very well matched in Melbourne, with four tenths of a second on six teams.

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While Alfa Romeo, Toro Rosso and Haas were in the middle of the pack in P1, Renault ranked 10th with Nico Hulkenberg and 17th with Daniel Ricciardo. It was thought that the Australian would have been restrained on what would have been his fastest turn.

Racing Point, which has made a big improvement at the opening weekend, and McLaren were at the bottom of this pack and would consider improvements in the P2 order, which will start at 17:00 GMT.

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