Lando Norris topped the first practice session for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix as Oliver Bearman became the first driver to crash this season.
Norris posted a 1:17.252 to go top of the timing screens at the end of the 60-minute session with Carlos Sainz being a surprise second in the Williams, 0.149s behind the McLaren.
Charles Leclerc was third fastest in the Ferrari, over two tenths down on Norris' time but the Monegasque posted his lap on the Softs at an earlier stage in the session.
Oscar Piastri was fourth fastest in the other McLaren over four tenths down on his teammate's time.
Defending champion Max Verstappen had a tricky session and finished it fifth fastest, 0.444s off the pace while his new teammate Liam Lawson was down in 16th place, 1.203s from the top.
Alex Albon gave more reason for Williams to be optimistic as he finished the session in sixth place ahead of George Russell who was seventh fastest and had a spin in the end of the session, but got away with it.
Fernando Alonso was eighth fastest in the Aston Martin ahead Isack Hadjar who was an impressive ninth in his first outing with the Racing Bulls ahead of Lance Stroll in tenth.
Hadjar was the best of the rookies with his ninth place while Jack Doohan was 13th ahead of Kimi Antonelli who was 14th in the Mercedes, while Gabriel Bortoleto was 15th.
Oliver Bearman, who crashed and destroyed his Haas on his first outing in it was 20th.
Lewis Hamilton, in his first session with Ferrari, was 12th fastest, over half a second slower than Leclerc, the Briton reporting some understeer during the session.
Buildup towards FP1
Formula 1 is back, people! After the agony of waiting through the winter season deprived of grand prix weekend and having to settle for news scrapes here and there, we are finally back in business!
And what a season awaits as we look forward to Hamilton's first official F1 weekend in Ferrari Red while we look out for battle between the four top teams.
McLaren remains the team to beat despite Norris' best efforts to downplay his team's advantage as he gears up for a new title challenge against teammate Piastri first and then Verstappen, Leclerc, Hamilton, and Russell.
While McLaren is tipped as a favorite, Mercedes and Ferrari seem up there, while Red Bull, despite being an enigma, could never be written off, especially with Verstappen behind the wheel, while his new teammate, Lawson, will be looking to make an impression.
While the top four's battle will be highly anticipated, the midfield battle will be intriguing as well, with Williams showing improvement in winter testing as Sainz makes his debut for them.
Six rookies will be joining the F1 grid in 2025. Antonelli at Mercedes, Hadjar at Racing Bulls, Bortoleto at Sauber, somehow Lawson with Red Bull, Bearman with Haas, and finally Doohan with Alpine.
We'll be keeping an eye on those...
As for the tyres, Pirelli have added a C6 compound to their lineup in 2025 but have brought their C3 (Hard), C4 (Medium) and C5 (Soft) compounds for the opening round down under.
So let's kick off the 75th year of F1 at the revised Albert Park track.
FP1 Session highlights
The session started in clear and warm conditions with track temperatures at 40 degrees Celsius while the air temperature was 24 degrees.
Hulkenberg was the first driver to hit the track in 2025 with Norris chasing him out of the pitlane as others followed.
Hamilton was soon out as well in the Ferrari but had a small lockup going into Turn 3... Nothing major.
The Medium tyre was the tyre of choice for all the drivers, no exceptions, as the session started.
Lawson had a moment on the kerbs then reported that he touched the wall at the entry of Turn 9, but kept going.
The drivers started putting in the laps with times posted and dropping as the track rubbered in with every time the cars made a run.
A driver who was happy with his ride was Ocon in the Haas who reported that his ride quality was "too smooth".
Then Verstappen took too much speed into Turn 7 and dipped a tyre in the gravel but kept going. The RB21 is sporting some flow vis on the rear wing.
Russell reported that he was suffering from understeer in the high speed corners. His engineer suggested some changes to the differential settings.
With less than 40 minutes remaining, the session was then red flagged due to a big amount of gravel around Turn 6.
The session was restarted with 35 minutes remaining on the clock and Hadjar had a slightly awkward moment coming out of the pits and miscalculated his turning angle.
His mechanics had to run out and push him back so he could get going.
Piastri soon had a moment into the gravel at Turn 6, but kept going. However the track that was cleaned up now has some gravel on it again.
Russell soon reported that it was getting "very hot" inside the car. That seems to be a chronic issue with Mercedes as we have heard that comment from their drivers in 2023.
Gasly then a had a big snap of oversteer at Turn 11 but got away with it as the teams had started their runs on Soft tyres.
But then with 22 minutes remaining, we had the first crash of 2025, as Bearman crashed his Haas coming out of Turn 10.
The Red flag was out again as the stricken Haas was being cleared from the track. The rookie walked away safely from the crash.
Bearman had a snap coming out of Turn 9 and ended up in the gravel trap and once his car was back in track it got unsettled and careened into the wall demolishing the right side of the #87 VF-25.
The session was resumed with a little over ten minutes remaining and soon Norris and Tsunoda were having a mini-race of their own.
Hamilton soon reported: "I'm struggling to turn the car."
In the dying moments of the session, Russell spun in Turn 4 and ended up in the run-off are and was lucky that his Mercedes just touched the wall.
The session ended with practice starts as Hadjar radioed on his cool down lap admitting he was not happy with his "poor effort" on the Softs. He was ninth.
Australian Grand Prix FP1 Classification
Latest News
Loading
