Australian GP: Pirelli Friday Practice Review

The first free practice sessions of the year with the softer 2018 compounds was held in asphalt temperatures that peaked at 40 degrees centigrade (and 30 degrees ambient), with Mercedes fastest in both sessions but closely challenged by Red Bull in the afternoon.
Despite a brief red flag stoppage, the teams carried out plenty of running on all three compounds as they assessed the 2018 range of tyres in warm conditions for the first time.
As usual on the semi-permanent Albert Park track, which is rarely used outside of the grand prix, there was a very slippery surface today that should improve as more rubber is laid down.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“It’s early days, especially as this is the first warm running these tyres have had in conditions that we can directly compare to last year. On the longer runs, the pace of the frontrunners seems closely matched so far. The complexion tomorrow might be altered completely by the forecast of rain, with uncertain weather perhaps persisting on Sunday as well. After the first day of running of a new season, there’s obviously a lot of data to sift through, and it's certain that the full picture is yet to emerge. With the performance gap between soft and supersoft quite low from what we can see so far, and a bigger gap of 0.6 seconds to the ultrasoft, all three compounds appear to be viable options for the race strategy.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND 
Hamilton 	1m24.026s ULTRASOFT NEW
Bottas		1m24.577s ULTRASOFT NEW
Verstappen 	1m24.771s SUPERSOFT NEW

FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND
Hamilton 	1m23.931s ULTRASOFT NEW
Verstappen	1m24.058s ULTRASOFT NEW
Bottas 		1m24.159s ULTRASOFT NEW

FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND DRIVER TIME SOFT Raikkonen 1m24.875s
SUPERSOFT
Verstappen
1m24.771s ULTRASOFT Hamilton 1m24.026s

FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   TIME
SOFT 		Verstappen 1m24.401s
SUPERSOFT	Hamilton   1m24.385s
ULTRASOFT 	Hamilton   1m23.931s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   LAPS
SOFT 		Leclerc    27
SUPERSOFT	Ericsson   25
ULTRASOFT 	Bottas 	   22

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
			SOFT	SUPERSOFT	ULTRASOFT

Kms driven* 		1462 	1876 		2704
Sets used overall**	18	24		40

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.