The FP1 dances open at 3:30 Italian time, for this third weekend of the season.
Once again the teams are looking for data and the drivers are looking for the limits, especially those who have never raced in Melbourne, given that for the first time this year the minor formulas will have a weekend on this track. But how did this first Australian night go?
First technical news of the weekend
For this weekend, Pirelli has chosen to bring different compounds to those of last year. The new choice provides C2-C3-C4 compounds, thus bringing a less soft compound than last year where the C5 was chosen instead of the C4, then used marginally in qualifying.
Many teams continue to use the Flow Viz to collect as much aerodynamic data as possible, data that Ferrari needs a lot who again mounts the bottom tested in the Saudi FP1s, with a camera in front of a suspension tie rod to capture every movement.
The other technical news concern, alas, the motoring side of Ferrari. All four drivers of the cadet teams, Alfa Romeo and Haas, will mount a new internal combustion engine (ICE), there are those who theorize that the redhead wants to sip and protect the engines, alternating every 2-3 races or, without going around too much, there are those who think of mileage problems. At the Mercedes houseInstead, both drivers will have a new gearbox and a new exhaust system mounted on the single-seaters which will also change on the cars driven by Piastri, Norris, Bottas, Stroll, Alonso, Magnussen, Albon and Sargeant.
What does the track say?
In these FP1s, the only thing we can grasp for sure is that in Red Bull they are calm, Max performs two stints both with the red tyre, the same thing for Perez who instead runs with the yellow. From the words that the two release to the media, one emerges Perez's great desire to fight and a quiet acceptance of the challenge from Max who adds: "at the moment there are no other rivals besides Perez". The only flaw of the session for the Milton Keynes team were the slight drooling by Max, who for a few consecutive laps struggled to control the car, perhaps due to a slightly understeering RB19, in fact in the last ten minutes of the session, a long and a spin for the Dutchman.
Good but not great for Ferrari which barely manages to enter the top 5 with Leclerc, but which demonstrates a promising race pace with Sainz, with the SF-23 which seems to behave better than the Red Bull.
Same thing for Aston Martin which is fourth with Alonso with the same feeling of comfort given by a positive race pace.
The session was characterized by a lot of activity on the track with a short break after the first 20 minutes which left Verstappen, Sargeant, Albon and Devries alone.
Two red flags, end of session
There is no shortage of hunger drools, the first to go long in turn 1 is Yuki Tsunoda 27 minutes from the end, after 3 minutes it is Magnussen's turn who, however, brings a lot of gravel onto the track, so much force the race direction to interrupt the session with a first red flag.
As already mentioned, Verstappen's long spin with 10 minutes to go caused a sensation, almost more for the rarity of the event than for their seriousness, which despite everything secures the first position in FP1 being the only one to go under the minute and 19, with a time of 1.18.790.
The session ends again with a second red flag, caused by the American rookie Logan Sargeant who plants the FW45 in the grass, ending the tests early.
Surprise of the session is Lewis Hamilton who, shortly before the definitive interruption of practice, places his Mercedes in second position by fracturing a Red Bull front row, below are the final placings of FP1 on the Albert Park circuit.
