Lewis Hamilton opened his championship defence with a strong showing in the opening practice session for the Australian Grand Prix on Friday morning. The Mercedes driver topped the 90-minute session with a 1:24.026 – beating his chart-topping first free practice time from 2017 by two tenths. Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas was second quickest, albeit half a second down with a 1:24.577, narrowly ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen in third. The opening session of the year began with Sergey Sirotkin setting the first timed lap and also his first official timed lap in F1 as he makes his debut with Williams, although that was quickly beaten and the times began to tumble after...
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