Red Bull's Max Verstappen was headed by Charles Leclerc in Friday practice.
The Dutch driver appeared to have the potential to go faster had it not been for traffic and errors.
The second car of Carlos Sainz was only.98 seconds off the pace in third place, ahead of the Alpine of Fernando Alonso.
Lewis Hamilton was 13th and George Russell was 11th.
It was a difficult session, seven-time champion Hamilton said.
Hamilton said that nothing they change on the car makes a difference.
It doesn't seem to want to improve after you make changes. Some changes were made to P2. P1 was better than P2 for me. It is a tricky car.
We have to drive with it because it is the way it is. That is the frustrating thing. You are trying to push and catch and even when you do a decent lap it is 1.2 seconds down.
The Mercedes has been afflicted byporpoising since it first hit the track, an aerodynamic phenomenon that leads to a high-frequency bouncing on the straights as the airflow under the car is disrupted.
Russell said it was the most severe he had experienced. We believe that is the fastest way around the track.
We need to dig into the data. We went from left to right and then to the same outcome. We need to get top of things and understand what is happening.
Verstappen complained of a lack of front grip early in the day, but he improved the car towards the end of running.
The world champion said that they were lacking a bit of balance.
We are a little bit off of Ferrari but I think we can make it a little bit closer. In the long run everything was nice and stable, so I am happy about that. We don't have a lot of work to do but we are more or less there.
Red Bull'sSergio Perez was fifth, ahead of the second Alpine of Lando Norris, Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly, and the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.
Verstappen looked like he had the potential to overtake the Ferraris at the top of the timesheets, but encountered traffic on one fast lap and then made a mistake three corners from the end of another when he appeared to go fastest.
There was a brief red-flag period at the end of the session after a piece of bodywork detached from Lance Stroll's car.
After an engine failure at the end of the first session, Sebastian Vettel did not run in the second. The team had planned to change the power unit but didn't do so in time for the German to return to the track.
The Albert Park track has been modified for the return of F1 to Australia.
A chicane has been removed and some of the corners have 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611
There were no major incidents during the session, although a number of drivers ran off-track and Verstappen had a couple of near misses with traffic. The Dutch driver had to back out of a fast lap at the 155mph Turns Nine and 10 when cars were running slowly on the racing line ahead of him.
Only three engines can be used for the whole championship, and Alonso's Alpine is one of them.
Alpine fitted a new engine for Alonso after they discovered a problem with his engine in the first race. That had a water-pump failure which caused damage to the internal combustion engine.
Alonso will face grid penalties later in the year for using more than the allowed number of power-unit elements.
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