Nico Rosberg damaged his front wing in that incident and has had to stop the car at Turn 13, with the virtual safety car deployed. That's the first time it has been deployed in a practice session.

Tom Clarkson
BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter

"There's one person in the Mercedes garage who will be smiling right now... and that's Lewis Hamilton."

Nico Rosberg's damaged his Mercedes The damp track is clearly still very troublesome and Rosberg loses his rear through Turn 7 and he spins sideways, nudging the wall. He attempts to limp the car back to the pits.

Lewis Hamilton doesn't appear to have any plans to head out any time soon. Instead, he is sat in the Mercedes garage, studying what Nico Rosberg is up to very closely. 

Want to know what Andrew Benson thinks about the Australian Grand Prix? Or what the best corners on the Albert Park circuit are? Or why the people of Melbourne dress up as toilets around this time of the year and jump into water? Then check out our Australian Grand Prix preview article.

WARNING. Contains picture of a giant spider.

Almost 30 minutes into the session, there's now three cars on the track, with Daniil Kvyat joining his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and Mercedes' Nico Rosberg.

Image source, Getty Images

As is tradition, Sebastian Vettel has given his car a name for the season.

We've had Kate's Dirty Little Sister, Luscious Liz and Hungry Heidi in the past, and now...Margherita. 

So he's decided to name it after a pizza?

"It's not named after a pizza," says Vettel. 

"It's a name, first of all. I think if you look it up, the first thing that comes is that it's a name, not a pizza."

He's not wrong, you know. An 'Italian feminine given name' is the first search result. 

Followed by lots of stories of Vettel saying it is not named after a pizza.

There's an impressive amount of spray kicking up behind Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull. The Australian giving the home fans something to cheer.

Something silver now slinks onto the circuit. It's the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Jennie Gow
BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter in Melbourne

"No-one else really looks as though they are about to head out. Lewis Hamilton has come into the garage and is stood talking to his race engineer. He came in sort of dancing away with his glasses on. Someone asked him earlier if he had a problem with his eyes and he looked at him as if to say 'dude, don't you know fashion?'"

Hang on, those ducks have been rudely interrupted by Daniel Ricciardo, who has braved the conditions to head out first.

Image source, Reuters

I am happy to report that the ducks are absolutely loving it. They are strutting around the track at the moment like they own the place.

Pirelli made a big deal last season about two aspects of the tyres that they were going to change for 2016. 

The biggest was the re-introduction of a sudden drop-off in performance after a certain amount of tyre life, the idea being to introduce more unpredictability into the races. Problem is, in testing the teams could not really find any evidence of this so-called “cliff”. 

And here in Australia Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has admitted that it was “not working at the level we wanted”. The new ultra-soft tyre - introduced to provide a grippier tyre at low-stress street circuits - is also not quite what it seems. 

It can, as one engineer pointed out on Thursday, do a lap of Barcelona, one of the toughest tracks on the calendar for tyres, “so you can hardly call it an ultra-soft”. Pirelli’s approach of using higher-than-optimal tyre pressures has also continued into 2016.

Image source, Getty Images

As we continue to wait for some action in Melbourne, here's a picture of Kimi Raikkonen thoroughly enjoying his media commitments yesterday.

Loves it.