Australian Grand Prix, with Ecclestone saying they would need to pay for their travel expenses, which are usually covered by the commercial rights holder. As in the previous two years, Pirelli announced they would be supplying teams with the orange-banded hard compound tyre as the prime selection and the white-banded medium compound as the option selection for the event. The event also made use of Pirelli's two wet weather tyres, the green-banded intermediate and blue-banded full wet tyres. Practice Per the regulations for the 2015 season, three practice sessions were held, two 90-minute sessions on Friday and another one-hour session before qualifying on Saturday. Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the first practice session on Friday morning, while championship leader Lewis Hamilton was sidelined due to engine problems. He recovered to take fastest time in the second session of the day, while Ferrari proved that they would be closer to their rivals in Sepang, coming within 0.4 seconds in both free practice sessions. Fernando Alonso made his debut in the new McLaren, finishing 14th and 16th in the two Friday sessions respectively, outpacing teammate Jenson Button both times. Also debuting during free practice were Manor-Marussia, with both cars struggling to meet the time limit of 107%. Raffaele Marciello filled in for Sauber-regular Felipe Nasr during the first session. During the third practice session on Saturday morning, both Mercedes drivers were once again fastest, with Rosberg setting the fastest time, while Ferrari was about half a second behind. Qualifying Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with five drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. The first part of qualifying (Q1) got under way in the dry and sunny conditions; this was not the conditions that would favour McLaren as they were still off the pace of the midfield although they made progress. Jenson Button along with his returning teammate Fernando Alonso were separated by only a tenth of a second, but were 17th and 18th on the grid. Joining them were the Manor-Marussia cars of Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens; Merhi recorded a time that was almost five seconds slower than Alonso, and Stevens failed to take to the circuit, while Felipe Nasr also failed to make it out of Q1, as he struggled for balance in his Sauber. Clouds built up at the west of the circuit before