Rain in both the first and second free practice sessions today meant that it wasn’t possible for the teams to complete much realistic running. As well as wet weather, there were high winds and cool conditions that resulted in track temperatures that were around 20 degrees less than those recorded yesterday.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director: “A bit of a washout – that’s how we can describe today I think! Most of the running was on intermediates this afternoon, which we are unlikely to see being used in the race, although there’s a chance they will be needed again tomorrow. While nobody really learned a lot today, there was some slick tyre running this morning, and we came close to the crossover point, enabling some useful data to be gathered about the intermediate. What this all means is that a season full of far-reaching changes has got off to an even more unpredictable start than expected, which opens up even more variables for the rest of the weekend. We’ll have to wait a little bit longer now to find out the true effect of the 2016 tyre regulations.”

Pirelli fact of the day: Jacques Villeneuve, who would go on to become 1997 world champion, made his Formula 1 debut at the 1996 Australian Grand Prix exactly 20 years ago, qualifying on pole but finishing second after his car picked up an oil leak.

Spotted in the paddock today: Alan Jones, 1980 world champion, who was commentating for Australian television. Jones is still the only Australian driver to have won the Australian Grand Prix, at Calder Park in 1980: a non-championship race, in which Jones drove his title-winning Williams FW07.

FP1 - TIMES 		    FP2 - TIMES
1. Hamilton 1m29.725s Soft  1. Hamilton 1m38.841s Interm.
2. Kvyat 1m30.146s Soft     2. Hulkenberg 1m39.308s Interm.
3. Ricciardo 1m30.875s Soft 3. Raikkonen 1m39.486s Interm.

FP1 - BEST TIME PER COMPOUND
MEDIUM 		Ricciardo 	1m32.394s
INTERMEDIATE 	Verstappen 	1m40.075s
SOFT 		Hamilton 	1m29.725s

FP2 – BEST TIME PER COMPOUND
INTERMEDIATE 	Hamilton 	1m38.841s

LONGEST STINTS OF THE DAY
INTERMEDIATE 	Wehrlein 	13 laps
SOFT 		Hamilton 	9
MEDIUM 		Haryanto 	5

Tyre statistics of the day:
				Medium 	Soft Intermediate Wet
kms driven * 			127 	562  1256 	  68
sets used overall ** 		7 	26   21 	  13
highest number of laps ** 	6 	9    23 	  1

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.