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LIVE: Free Practice 2 in Australia! Can Hamilton stay on top? *CLOSED*

LIVE: Free Practice 2 in Australia! Can Hamilton stay on top? *CLOSED*

15-03-2019 04:00 Last update: 08:05
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Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

We're not sure whether to call this a late or an early start, but either way, Free Practice 2 is here! Lewis Hamilton managed to keep both Ferrari's behind him in FP1 earlier tonight, but can he repeat that trick?

*Live Blog below*

Flying laps

Usually, FP2 gives us (the audience) the best indication of where each team's one-lap pace is at ahead of qualifying on Saturday. The teams will run their qualifying sims during the session, and barring laps getting ruined by traffic, it should give a could indication of how qualifying could turn out tomorrow.

Big Three are close

Apart from Pierre Gasly, who was down in P8 in FP1, the top three teams were incredibly close in FP1. Just 0.267 seconds separated Hamilton in P1 and his teammate Valtteri Bottas in P5, with both Ferrari's and Max Verstappen wedged in between that Mercedes sandwich. 

Having a three-way title race would be extremely entertaining for the fans, so let's pray it stays this close for the rest of the sessions, and indeed for the season. Although last season, all top three teams won two races each in the first six Grands Prix, but that didn't stay competitive for the entire year...

Can Williams recover?

Williams have been terrible in FP1, there's no other way of putting it. Almost five seconds off the top and two and a half seconds slower than the next slowest car in P18 (Lando Norris). For now, we'll give the Grove-based team the benefit of the doubt and we'll say they were just tweaking the set-up, but they'll have to show us something here in FP2...

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