Hamilton goes fastest in Oz

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap time of the Australian GP second free practice session ahead of teammate Jenson Button and local favorite Mark Webber.

Drizzle at the start of the session prompted race direction to declare the track wet.

There was no rush in the pitlane at first as many drivers waited for the conditions to improve. They lost no time when the rain eased off, with fifteen minutes gone, and completed their first flying laps.

Both McLaren Mercedes drivers came on top with Lewis Hamilton going quickest and setting the fastest time of the day. Vitaly Petrov was third for Renault. Sebastien Buemi and Vitantonio Liuzzi completed the top five.

The conditions then went worse as rain started to pour down on Melbourne, only to ease off fifteen minutes later. Teams could resume their work on a drying track with some drivers complaining of graining on their tyres.

They switched to dry tyres with twenty minutes still to go. The track became really busy in the last five minutes with 21 cars running.

There were a number of improvements with Mark Webber moving up to third and Michael Schumacher setting the fourth fastest lap time. Sebastian Vettel was also on course to significantly improve but came across Fernando Alonso in the final sector. The Red Bull driver spun at turn 6 on his next lap and came back in the pits. He ended the day in 16th place.

Karun Chandhok completed only one lap during this session, having had to stop his car at the end of the pitlane because of a gearbox problem. It was even worse for his HRT teammate Bruno Senna who was unable to complete a single lap.

Lotus was once again the fastest of the new teams with Heikki Kovalainen even managing to lap faster than Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari.