Hamilton sets out his stall with leading performance in Melbourne first practice

Lewis Hamilton opened the defence of his Formula One championship by dominating first practice at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The 33-year-old British driver, who is this year bidding to secure his fifth world crown, proved why he is the favourite to win the title after soaring to the top of the time sheets.

Under clear blue skies at Melbourne’s Albert Park, Hamilton’s best effort of one minute and 24.026 seconds saw him finish more than half-a-second clear of team-mate Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes secured a practice one-two.

Max Verstappen was best of the rest for Red Bull, three-quarters-of-a-second down on Hamilton’s quickest lap, with Kimi Raikkonen fourth for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel fifth. Home favourite Daniel Ricciardo was sixth in the order.

There were further troubles for McLaren however, as Britain’s most successful team were again hit with reliability issues.

The switch from Honda to Renault power was set to usher in a new dawn for McLaren, but the Woking marque completed the fewest of any laps during winter testing, and an exhaust problem restricted track time for their lead driver Fernando Alonso here.

Double world champion Alonso finally emerged from the McLaren garage with only 20 minutes of the one-and-a-half hour session remaining, and provided some hope by setting the eighth quickest time – albeit the best part of two seconds down on Hamilton.

Alonso’s team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne also spent the majority of the opening session in the garage and rooted to the foot of the time sheets before taking to the track in the closing moments to complete a lap good enough for 10th of the 20 runners.

Although times in practice must be treated with caution, Vettel, who won this race last year, will have wanted to be closer to the man he is also fighting for a fifth championship. Vettel was one second down on Hamilton and behind his team-mate Raikkonen, too.

The 30-year-old German however, along with the rest of the pack, will have a chance to make amends in second practice which gets under way at 4pm local time.