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Lewis Hamilton started the new Formula 1 season with the fastest time of the first test session at the Australian Grand Prix.
The world champion had stressed Thursday that he felt that Mercedes was behind Ferrari before the season.
But in a tight session, Hamilton beat Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by 0.038 seconds. Teammate Charles Leclerc was 0.036 seconds behind.
Only 0.193sec covered the top four, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) being next.
The Thai-born Briton Alexander Albon, a rookie driving for Toro Rosso, briefly interrupted the session with a fall at turn two.
The incident dropped the front wing, but Albon was able to bring the car back to the pits.
The other new drivers, the British Lando Norris and George Russell, have started cautiously on the trail of Albert Park Street, famous for its dirt and bumps and where it is easy to lose the car and damage it.
Norris ended the 18th session, with four places and his team-mate Carlos Sainz 0.6 seconds behind the heat. Russell was last and 0.8 seconds behind his teammate at Williams, Robert Kubica.
Williams was, as might be expected, at the back of the pack. Kubica was two seconds away from the next slowest car, which was Norris.
Part of that margin was in the tires – Williams was only running the average tire while most of the others were putting their time on the fastest app – but that still leaves the Williams more than a second to the second. back of the grid.
In the front, Hamilton's performances undermined Mercedes claims that she was behind Ferrari.
The world champions led the way throughout the session. Bottas clocked the fastest time in mid-length tires, before Hamilton edged out 0.27sec.
Bottas ran away in the penultimate angle and narrowly avoided twisting the wall while trying to improve his time.
Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo) finished sixth, ahead of an impressive performance of Daniil Kvyat (seventh) returning to seventh place in the Toro Rosso on medium tire.
Red Bull's second driver, Pierre Gasly, was eighth ahead of Renault's Nico Hulkenberg, who missed the first half of the session due to a technical problem.
Teammate Daniel Ricciardo was beaten by Haas driver Romain Grosjean in his fastest lap. The 17th Australian time was therefore not representative.
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