This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
Practice is done! Here’s the report on the final hour of running, qualifying is coming up next.
Sure enough the session ends with Piastri on top. As Verstappen heads in his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase tells him: “This may be your last opportunity to look at pit entry with the new regs on Sunday.”
The chequered flag falls and it doesn’t look like anyone is going to beat Piastri’s time.
It’s worth noting the weather forecast for tomorrow remains a strong, 95% chance of showers, so the cars’ dry weather pace may count for little when it matters most, and it will have a bearing on teams’ set-up decisions for qualifying.
Russel jumps into second now, 0.039s off Piastri, and almost the same ahead of Verstappen, so it’s very tight at the top. We’ve still not seen a properly representative time from Norris, though.
Leclerc reports his car is “very oversteery.”
Hamilton: “How much time am I losing in turn six? Give me sector times again.” Adami: “Two-tenths, turn six.”
Leclerc and Verstappen are improving their times in the first sector. Neither gain in the short middle sector. Verstappen pits, Leclerc goes fourth with a 1’16.188, two-tenths quicker than he managed yesterday.
Piastri’s benchmark time is six thousandths of a second off the quickest time set by anyone last year. That was Verstappen’s pole position time.
Hamilton: “How far are we off the top?” Adami: “Piastri, 15.9. Four tenths.”
Piastri becomes the first driver to dip under 76 seconds with a 1’15.921. He was fastest of all in the final sector.
Isack Hadjar goes tenth in the Racing Bulls. He’s almost three tenths off team mate Yuki Tsunoda who is seventh. Antonelli almost matches Russell’s time.
Norris looks very hooked up in the quick corners in his McLaren, he does the fastest first sector time of anyone but backs out in the penultimate turn after a snap of oversteer.
Russell can’t quite manage Verstappen’s pace, he’s the best part of two tenths of a second slower in third place.
Oscar Piastri almost matches Verstappen with a 1’16.077 in the McLaren. Is this what the fight for pole position is going to look like in around three hours’ time?
Red Bull finally reveal some of their real pace. Verstappen puts in a 1’16.002 with 14 minutes left, which is the fastest time of the weekend so far, and a full second faster than they went yesterday.
Carlos Sainz Jnr almost matches his team mate, just two hundredths in it, as he goes third.
Alexander Albon improves again with a 1’16.508 to go second in the Williams, a tenth of a second off Russell’s pace, now on the soft rubber.
The floor is off Lawson’s car so we may not see the second Red Bull on the track again today.
George Russell finds even more time from the Mercedes. He goes top on a 1’16.402 – the fastest time by anyone so far this weekend – on soft rubber. There’s just over a third of the session left.
Hamilton goes third, a thousandth off a second off his team mate, both on the soft rubber. That 1’16.677 is his best time so far this weekend. “Was a good lap,” says Adami. Hamilton asks for “plus another two” which is likely an increase in front wing flap angle. Adami tells Hamilton he can find “one tenth and a half at turn six.”
Leclerc gets within three-hundredths of a second of beating Verstappen’s time. His time from yesterday remains the quickest of the weekend so far.
Alexander Albon pops up to second in his Williams, 0.155s off the pace, but impressively he did that time on the hard tyres.
Lewis Hamilton is surprised to learn where he’s losing time on his car. “Seven-tenths in turn six and 10?” he asks his new race engineer Ricardo Adami.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli jumps up to second place with a 1’16.870 in the Mercedes, seven-tenths of a second faster than they managed yesterday. They didn’t look great on the softs yesterday but that will give them some encouragement.
turn six and yesterday
Verstappen does a 1’16.646 on softs to go fastest. That’s four-tenths of a second faster than he or Red Bull managed yesterday, so things are already looking better for them.
Everyone on track now apart from arguably the two drivers who most need running at the moment: Bearman and Lawson.
Oscar Piastri goes quickest with a 1’17.298. Charles Leclerc slots into fourth, half a second off the pace, and 1.3s off his benchmark pace from yesterday.
Max Verstappen puts up a 1’17.632, six-tenths of a second off his best time from yesterday.
Lawson begins a lap then backs off due to some kind of problem on his car. “Is this major?” he asks. “Just come back to the pit lane now.”
The Ferrari drivers headed straight back in. The Red Bull pair head out, Liam Lawson also in need of a better day having been 17th yesterday.
Ocon posts the first time of the day with a 1’20.063.
The Ferrari drivers head out first followed by Esteban Ocon in the sole remaining Haas. Bearman’s spin is particularly bad news for Haas as they were surprised to find themselves so far off the pace yesterday and needed all the running they could get.
The session resumes with 49 minutes remaining.
The rookie dropped his left-hand wheels onto the grass approaching the corner and the car snapped around. He shakes his head as he clutches the wheel.
Bearman’s off again! He’s spun into a gravel trap at turn 11 and the red flags are out.
The pit lane exit light turns green and Bearman joins the track. He’s followed seconds later by in Lewis Hamilton the Ferrari.
It doesn’t look like we’re going to see an immediate rush for many cars leaving the pits – Max Verstappen and Lando Norris’s cockpits are empty. But Oliver Bearman is an exception. He only covered a dozen laps yesterday before crashing and is poised to head out as soon as the session begins.
Third practice for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix is coming up next.
2025 Australian Grand Prix
- Contact with team mate may have led to Bortoleto’s Austrian GP crash
- Hamilton dismisses ‘negativity’ over his radio calls. ‘Other drivers are almost abusive’
- Antonelli “got really scared” when he made “big save” on first lap of Australian GP
- Williams explain role played by car’s systems in Sainz’s race-ending crash
- Norris is only driver besides Verstappen to win back-to-back races since 2021
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
15th March 2025, 2:04
Hamilton’s got the helmet cam on this morning. When he’s poking around at his steering wheel controls, there still seems to be a sense of “what does this button do?”