Hamilton: Don't think Ferrari speed has somehow disappeared

Hamilton topped the timing screens at the end of FP2, with teammate Valtteri Bottas half a tenth adrift with the next best Max Verstappen third in the Red Bull albeit whopping eighth tenths shy of the top time.

Based on Barcelona testing pace Ferrari were expected to be the favourites, but Sebastian Vettel was 0.873 of a second off the benchmark time set by Hamilton.

Several F1 pundits and former drivers in the Melbourne paddock are playing down what appears to be a big margin Mercedes has to their rivals on day one of the season, suggesting that Ferrari and Red Bull have something in reserve for qualifying.

Hamilton himself had his doubts when he told media pen reporters, “I don't think we've seen all the cards from any team yet honestly. We know how much we can improve for the qualifying and for the race, [but] we have no clue how much the others can."

"You know Ferrari, they were very strong in winter testing. I don't think their speed has somehow disappeared, so for sure they were testing something different and we’ll find out tomorrow.”

At the end of the day, Vettel had a dig at Mercedes, saying that the World Champions claim of early season problems was "bullshit" and that Hamilton's times proved that they are cocked and loaded to defend their title with a handy piece of kit, again.

The five-time F1 World Champion pointed out, “If you look today at how close it is, even the mid-pack are really close, so I would say even more than ever before there's even less margin for error."

"That's how it's supposed to be, that's what we get paid the big bucks to do is to pull out those milliseconds to try and make the difference so I'm super stoked and excited for what’s to come.”

“I really have a positive buzz from driving the car today. These new cars – the flow is unbelievable. It’s how Formula 1 cars are supposed to be when they're wide and they’re big.”

Mercedes have not won in Australia since 2016, while Hamilton remains winless in the city since 2015 while, but appears buoyant ahead of qualifying on Saturday, "There’s plenty of stuff that we can improve on, but this was not a bad start."

"What we have to do now is really study and analyse everything, as we always do on a Friday night. But the fact is we’ve got two cars that continue to go around, none of us made a mistake and we kept the cars in one piece – that counts for a lot," added Hamilton.