Hamilton still fastest, but Red Bull and Ferrari catch up

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the fastest time on the first race of the season and was the fastest in the second free practice for Mercedes, but Max Verstappen managed to split Hamilton and his teammate Valtteri Bottas while teams reduced the gap behind Mercedes.

Hamilton managed to beat his first free practice time for one tenth on ultrasoft tyres, but his rivals have improved their times and reduced the gap from the first free practice.

Verstappen was the second fastest, 0.127 seconds behind Hamilton, while Bottas was two tenths slower in third place.

Verstappen set the first significant time of the second training, only 10 minutes after the start as he set 1:25.063 on soft tyres, three tenths ahead of Bottas.

Hamilton then takes the lead with half a second faster time on supersoft and then improves that time for another two tenths of a second.

Raikkonen takes the lead in Ferrari on ultrasoft tires (1:24.214) after a little over half an hour, and Hamilton soon returns on ultrasoft tyres and sets 1:23.931, the fastest time today.

Bottas was temporarily the second fastest before Verstappen split up two Mercede.

Raikkonen was again faster than Vettel in the fourth and fifth place for Ferrari, and Grosjean was again the fastest of the rest of the world in sixth place for Haas, ahead of Ricciardo in second Red Bull, with the red flag ruined his last fast lap.

Alonso was the fastest eight in McLaren with 1.269 s gap, ahead of the second Haas driver Magnussen and Vandoorne, who was again the tenth fastest.

In the very tense in middle of the pack, less than a second was between the sixth and the 14th position, and the Renault drivers were the 11th and 13th fastest, while separating Perez into Force India.

Williams and Toro Rosso Honda were slightly worse than in the first training session, and Sauber drivers were convincingly last with more than 2.8 seconds behind Hamilton.

2018 Australian GP FP2 results