Lewis Hamilton remained the quickest man in second practice at the Australian GP, but his rivals were hot on his heels in Melbourne on Friday afternoon.
The Mercedes driver lowered his morning benchmark to a 1m23.931s but that was only a tenth clear of Max Verstappen as Red Bull are emerging as the world champions closest challengers.
Valtteri Bottas was involved in a moment with Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 3 early on, which saw the younger of the two Finn’s have to take to the gravel, but he would end ahead of his fellow countryman in third as the 2007 champion was again the lead Ferrari.
Sebastian Vettel was fourth with Romain Grosjean sixth for Haas as a brief red flag for a loose timing wire halted Daniel Ricciardo, who was on course to challenge Verstappen and Bottas before his fast lap was complete.
It is the American team and McLaren who continue to lead the midfield with Fernando Alonso eighth, Kevin Magnussen ninth and Stoffel Vandoorne completing the top 10.
Renault remains in touch thanks to Carlos Sainz in 11th with Force India and Williams also looking to fight for the final Q3 places as nine-tenths covered Grosjean in P5 to Lance Stroll in P14.
Toro Rosso may have looked solid in testing but there are already signs the performance could be lacking as Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly sat 16th and 17th, four-tenths behind the midfield pack.
Sauber has the most work to do, however, with their drivers 0.001s apart but nine-tenths slower than anyone else.
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The final half an hour was given to race simulations and what has become clear is the harder compounds are looking more attractive with drivers able to extract good performance over a decent number of laps, perhaps pointing to a one-stop strategy.
It was the long runs in Barcelona which suggested Mercedes could hold the advantage and that also looks the case in Melbourne with Hamilton the only man to comfortably lap in the 1m28’s on the Ultrasoft tyre and few signs of the degradation problems which showed up in testing.
Ferrari and Red Bull are still very much in the frame, however, and with rain expected on Saturday plenty of drama awaits on qualifying day at Albert Park.
