MELBOURNE, Australia -- Turns 11 and 12 are the two fastest corners on the Albert Park circuit. Unlike the mix of third- and fourth-gear corners that make up the majority of the lap, the fast left-right sequence is negotiated in seventh gear and at over 160mph. It could just be because it's the first race of the season, but watching from the inside of the track the cars always look impossibly fast at this section of track.
"Obviously the car is quicker here than it was last year, so if feels better everywhere," Lewis Hamilton said after jumping out of his Mercedes on Friday evening. "But Turns 11 and 12 are crazy -- we're not even braking into that corner. It's insane!"
After maxing out at over 190mph on the preceding straight, the two concrete barriers lining the track suddenly split ahead of Turn 11, delivering the car into an opening. Neatly-manicured gravel traps lie either side of the high-speed chicane and two flat kerbs on the apex of each corner act as markers to guide the drivers on the perfect line.
Get it wrong and the locals will be finding pieces of carbon fibre in the gravel traps for weeks, get it right and a driver's bravery is rewarded with a higher exit speed all the way down to Turn 13 at the end of the following straight and the basis for a fast final sector.
Qualifying simulations
Ahead of the start of Friday's second practice, the sun was beating down on this section of track. The grass was parched underfoot and the dotted palm trees along the perimeter of the lake offered little shade overhead. But that didn't stop fifty or sixty fans lining the barrier on the entrance of the corner in the hope of getting a glimpse of an F1 car at its very limit.
The attraction of this vantage point becomes clear as soon as the first driver attacks the two corners, with a jab of the brakes on entry to Turn 11 before pinning the throttle wide open through Turn 12. After three or four more of the same a smell of burning undertrays starts to fill the air -- an odour not dissimilar to the smell of vintage electronics overheating.
Ferrari
Thirty minutes into the session and the qualifying simulations got underway. Ferrari was the first to venture out on a combination of ultra-soft tyres and low fuel, with Sebastian Vettel leading teammate Kimi Raikkonen on track. Vettel looked neat and tidy as his car clipped the entrance kerb at Turn 11, sparked as it settled over the bump and changed direction ahead of Turn 12. It was quick but it was hardly spectacular, and that appeared to be reflected in the lap time: a 1:24.451 -- slower than Hamilton's best effort on super-soft tyres earlier in the session. On his next run he missed the entrance kerb entirely, ran wide and didn't get back across the track in time to open up the entrance to Turn 12. Another underwhelming time popped up as he crossed the line.
"We actually tried to chase the balance [of the car] a bit because I didn't feel very comfortable yet, so I think we still have quite a lot of performance in hand," Vettel said after the session. "I'm not too worried because I know that if I get everything right then we should be in better shape but it looks to be close which is good news. So we should be able to do something tomorrow."
Raikkonen was the next driver to attack the section. His Ferrari also sparked as he clipped the entrance kerb, but he was able to keep a tighter line and opened up Turn 12 as he accelerated through the corner and out of view. A 1:24.214 on the timing screens followed.
"We have a lot of things to put exactly right and a lot of things we're wondering what is the best way to go," he said. "But those are normal things, especially in the beginning of the year, when we are trying things and trying to figure out the best way to go forward. Overall it was not too bad but for sure there are things to improve. But it was not a bad start."
Mercedes
But it was when the Mercedes drivers hit the track that things really stepped up a gear. Hamilton gave both kerbs a miss but still managed to maintain a tight and fast line through the two corners. On-board footage makes his progress look effortless, and watching from the outside it was as if his car faced less air resistance than the rest. If Vettel has something in hand in set-up for the rest of the weekend, Hamilton has plenty in hand just by pushing harder. For now, however, his benchmark time stands at a 1:23.931.
Valtteri Bottas looked just as fast as his teammate but the two corners were a lot more dramatic. Unlike Hamilton, he clipped both apex kerbs, with the rear of his Mercedes coming unstuck and slewing him sideways as he clobbered the second. He managed to catch the slide, but the impact on his lap time was clear to see as he crossed the line 0.228s off Hamilton after dropping 0.108s in the final sector alone.
Red Bull
Red Bull was the last of the top three teams to attempt a qualifying simulation. Max Verstappen was first of the two drivers on track and as he came through the high-speed chicane a shower of sparks sprayed from the undertray of his car. Part of Red Bull's design philosophy in recent years has seen the car running high levels of rake front-to-rear, and on low fuel and at high speeds the front of the floor drags along the track creating a firework display for watching fans.
Verstappen's line was relatively wide through both corners, but the change of direction was smooth, allowing him to paint his car between the two sun-drenched corners and maintain a high apex speed. The reward was a final sector 0.020s quicker than Hamilton's and an overall lap 0.127s off the world champion.
"The car has been behaving quite well today here, so of course I'm quite happy with that," he said at the end of the day, revealing little else.
Daniel Ricciardo was the last to go out on track for his qualifying simulation after a front suspension setup change kept him in the garage longer between runs than the rest. Once again, the Red Bull produced a light show from the rear but Ricciardo held a tighter line than his teammate. As he exited Turn 12 his car appeared to have a wobble, but no sooner had he corrected it than a red flag was flown and his lap was aborted. It was on his way back to the pits that he went under the minimum mini-sector time set by the FIA for safety reasons, earning himself a three-place penalty for Sunday's race.
"The red flag, that was my low fuel run, it was caught by that," he said. "But still the lap up until then was not going to go P1. It was quicker than my soft tyre run, but the balance ... we had quite a lot of understeer on that lap. If we didn't get the red flag we would have moved up from seventh but we still had some work to do."
A wet forecast for Saturday means we are unlikely to see a repeat of Friday's mind-bending speeds in qualifying, and will instead have to wait until the Bahrain Grand Prix to get a true reading of the ultimate pace of each car. However, even though it was only two corners on one type of track, the view from Turn 11 and 12 at Albert Park showed why Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari are so far ahead of the rest of the field this year.