MELBOURNE: Ferrari’s promising start to the Formula One season continued on Friday as the glamour team dominated free practice at the Australian Grand Prix but there was more gloom for struggling Mercedes at a revamped Albert Park.

Ferrari’s championship leader Charles Leclerc topped the timesheets with a lap of one minute, 18.978 in second free practice after being second to team-mate Carlos Sainz in the first.

However, Red Bull showed they will be nipping at their heels this weekend with world champion Max Verstappen splitting the Ferraris in the second session, 0.245 seconds adrift of Leclerc.

The Dutchman was fourth quickest in the first session.

There were some concerns for Ferrari, with both Leclerc and Sainz wrestling with their cars bouncing, or ‘porpoising’, down the sweeping new run of shallow corners where drivers hit high speed heading into turns nine and 10 at Albert Park.

“A bit of a harder Friday on my side today,” said Leclerc. “There’s still quite a bit of work to do. I don’t think anybody really put a lap together today. We need to do another step forward.”

Mercedes are no strangers to porpoising, with their new-look W13 car battling this season in the wake of major aerodynamic rule changes this year.

After disappointing results and performance in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, they remained well off the pace on Friday with George Russell 11th quickest in the second session, more than 1.2 seconds adrift of Leclerc.

His seven-time championship-winning team- mate Hamilton was 13th fastest and had a skid into gravel.

Veteran Fernando Alonso, who won at Albert Park 16 years ago, was a surprise fourth after a blistering 1:19.537 in his Alpine, ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull.

Esteban Ocon in the other Alpine secured sixth with 2019 winner Valtteri Bottas a strong seventh for Alfa Romeo, while both the McLarens made the top 10.

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel’s return to action after missing Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with Covid went badly wrong.

After setting some respectable times, the German jumped out of his Aston Martin with 14 minutes of the first practice left as smoke billowed from the back.

He failed to appear for the second practice with his team tweeting that his “car will not be ready to run” in a fresh setback for the three-time Melbourne champion.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022