Melbourne Friday: F1 Team & Driver reports from day one

Eight teams with new driver pairings emerged from practice, including Lewis Hamilton's first official session as a Ferrari driver and Max Verstappen welcoming Liam Lawson as the next 'victim' at Red Bull plus first-timers Isack Hadjar at Racing Bulls, Formula 2 Champion Gabriele Bortoleto at Sauber and Mercedes 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli - three rookies in their first F1 race weekend.

At the sharp end, Leclerc topped FP2, but McLaren confirmed they are the team to beat, Lando Norris in P3 and Oscar Piastri in P2 respectively as they set their fastest times on Soft tyres before Leclerc did. Read the full FP2 report here>>>

This is what F1 teams and drivers had to say at the end of the first day of free practice Down Under for F1 2025:

15. Pierre Gasly: “The first Friday Practice day of the year is done and it’s good to be back in the car in Melbourne. It seemed today there was a lot of action on track, which made things challenging to put together a clean lap with all the traffic. We managed to try a lot of things on the car across both Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2. The conditions here are very different to what we faced at Pre-Season Testing in Bahrain. That leaves us a lot to analyse and it is important now for us to make the right choices on set-up for the rest of the weekend. There remains the potential threat of rain at some point, which will make things interesting. We’ll aim to put the pieces together ahead of the first Qualifying of the season.”

14. Jack Doohan: “My first few laps in front of my home crowd were amazing, lots of good emotions which I will be channelling through the whole weekend. Today was a good day of learning across the two sessions, we are trying lots of different things to build out our balance and make sure we are in a good place for tomorrow. The car ran well in both sessions, and we were able to maximise our running with the conditions that we faced. We will debrief as a team and discuss what we can do in Free Practice 3 to put ourselves in a good position ahead of Qualifying.”

Team Report: "Sauber F1 Team had a productive practice start to the Australian Grand Prix weekend, completing two smooth practice sessions at Albert Park, officially marking the start of the new season. Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto carried out their scheduled programmes in both sessions, focusing on gathering data and fine-tuning the setup of the C45 to suit the track conditions. The team will further analyse the findings, making the necessary adjustments to prepare for tomorrow’s qualifying session."

P8. Nico Hulkenberg: “It has been a positive first Friday for us as a team. We changed the setup quite a bit between FP1 and FP2 and the resulting feedback turned out to be positive. It didn't feel that easy, though the lap times on low fuel look ok. In the end, tomorrow’s qualifying will tell us where we are compared to the competition. We managed to gather a lot of information which we process overnight and obviously we'll try to improve by tomorrow. Right now, it’s about taking it step by step and optimizing the car session by session."

P18. Gabriel Bortoleto: "Overall, I’m quite happy with today. We tested a few different things, especially in FP2, focusing on gathering as much data as possible to understand what works best and identify where we can improve. It’s been a valuable practice day for learning about the car and the track conditions. FP3 tomorrow will give us another chance to fine-tune the setup and make any adjustments we need ahead of qualifying. The feeling has been decent so far, and I'm looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow."

P3. Lando Norris: "A decent first day back in the car. Good feelings, all in all. We're struggling a bit with the balance, so we need to make a few changes to get it into a better place, but a good start to the weekend for us as a team. A good baseline, but a bit to improve on."

P2. Oscar Piastri: “It was a productive first day back for us, and it was pretty encouraging. We’ve still got some things to work on, but the pace was there. We’ve tried a few different things and gathered some good information, the car feels different to last year but that’s pretty normal. I am excited to see what we can do tomorrow – it’s been a pretty positive first day.”

Andrea Stella. Team Principal: “A relatively smooth session today without any major issues. This allowed us to run through our plan and to check the behaviour of the MCL39 here in Australia – which is a very different circuit to Bahrain, where we carried out winter testing. I think we’ve seen that the car behaves as expected, which is good news. Based on what we have seen today, we have some work to do in terms of optimisation but overall, it has been positive. I think these first couple of sessions have confirmed the field is, if possible, even tighter than it was in the past, so from a competitive point of view, we look forward to another interesting Formula 1 season.”

Team Report: "Haas endured a challenging start to the 2025 Formula 1 season in Friday practice at Albert Park. FP1 was briefly halted for gravel removal before Ollie Bearman crashed at Turn 10, ending his session early. The team's two cars completed 59 laps across both sessions - 47 from Ocon and 12 from Bearman - as they prepared for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix."

P19. Ollie Bearman: “I’m sad to have missed all that running today. The team did a great job to try and get the car back out, but we just ran out of time. I made a small mistake in turn 10 which put me a bit wide, and out there it’s very bumpy and unfortunately I lost it. I struggled a little bit, but I felt confident – maybe too much – but I felt at home and was building up nicely. FP3 is a long session and then into qualifying, the race will be a bit of a roll of the dice currently.”

P20. Esteban Ocon: “It hasn’t been the smoothest day for us. It’s the first day of the year, it’s normal that it goes that way, but we still have more to put together to get correct and exploit the maximum out of the car. I wasn’t happy with the balance and how the car felt – we made a step between FP1 and FP2 – but we need more, so hopefully we can do that in FP3 and build on from there.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: “Today was a pretty difficult day, it wasn’t the performance we were expecting. We have one indication as to why in FP1, but Ollie crashed so we couldn’t completely get to the bottom of why we were uncompetitive, so we need to make another step tonight and then do the best we can tomorrow.”

P11. Carlos Sainz: "Definitely a positive Friday practice for us, with FP1 quite strong. FP2, we didn’t manage to find performance on the Soft tyre, so we need to look into this ahead of Qualifying tomorrow. If we manage to unlock some performance on the Softs, then I think we can be competitive. The field is extremely tight, with various teams doing some very fast laps, so I think tomorrow it will be all about executing a clean Qualifying and seeing where that takes us."

P12. Alex Albon: "We had an issue with the brakes in FP1 but were able to fix that after the session and settled into it more. By the end of FP2 I was in a fairly good place, but we lost performance to our rivals on the Soft tyre, so we need to understand why as it doesn’t feel right and it’s important to get on top of that ahead of Qualifying. On the Medium tyre, I feel we would comfortably be in Q3, but the Softs have changed a bit from last year and we are just trying to understand them. All being said, not a bad start today."

P7. Max Verstappen: “Today the grip wasn’t great and we were struggling on all four tyres, particularly in sector one and in the final sector. It feels like we are not up there at the moment but we will work to find more pace. There are no major balance issues, so I think this makes things a bit harder to fix. But this isn’t anything that we didn’t expect when we arrived here. Positively, I think we were surprised with the pace that the car showed. Historically, we have not been that good here in Melbourne since the new tarmac update so will see how we go over the weekend. However, we will continue to work to find a bit more pace ahead of qualifying."

P17. Liam Lawson: “I felt comfortable in the car today, but it just wasn’t fast enough, so we have a lot of work to do overnight. Day one on a new track you are expecting to have work to do but not this much. We can’t really pinpoint why it’s been tricky out there so far, if we knew we could fix it a lot quicker. We need to pick it up on short run pace, but the long run pace wasn’t great either, so yeah, a lot to do. So, it will be a challenge for the Team, but we will aim to improve for tomorrow."

Team Report: "It was a productive first Friday for Scuderia Ferrari HP in Melbourne’s Albert Park. The team got through its planned programme, while working on the balance of the SF-25. Charles Leclerc posted the day’s best time in the second free practice session, while his new team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, was fifth overall. There is still work to do for qualifying and the race, but the team has acquired plenty of data to study overnight and decide on what changes need to be made in terms of set-up."

P1. Charles Leclerc: "The feeling in the car was good and we had a solid first day on track. There is still some margin for improvement in terms of the balance, which is the same for everyone across the paddock, given that these cars are still pretty new to all of us and we have to push to understand their limits.
"It’s too early to come to any conclusions. We will only get a first idea of the respective pace of all the teams in qualifying. All in all, it was a good day and we look forward to tomorrow, when we want to target pole position."

P5. Lewis Hamilton: "It’s great to finally get going and start my first race weekend with Scuderia Ferrari HP. It’s been a learning day as I continue to understand and get to grips with the new car. Everything is so completely different from what I’ve been used to for so long but that’s the challenge, and I’m embracing it.
"We were not completely satisfied with FP1 but we made some good progress in FP2 and got some solid longer runs in, which was important. There’s still balance work to do overnight, and we’re missing a bit of pace, but that’s expected. It’s about building step by step, maximising what we have, and continuing to push forward. Looking forward to working hard and seeing what improvements we can make tomorrow."

P10. George Russell: "It was an interesting first day of the season. We looked particularly quick on the Hard and Medium compounds, and the overall balance of the car felt strong. On the Soft tyre, we didn't improve as much as you might expect. That is something we will evaluate overnight but, with the track temperature over 40°C today, that may have played a part. It is encouraging that there is inherent pace in the car though, as we've seen on the C3 and C4 compounds. Our focus is now unlocking that pace across all three tyre compounds and hopefully we can do that tomorrow. It felt good to be back out on track here; the fans are always incredible in Melbourne and it's a fun circuit to drive. I had a couple of moments out there but was able to keep it out the wall. I am confident that we can find the improvements we are looking for overnight and have a smoother day on Saturday."

P16. Kimi Antonelli: "It was a positive first day of the season. Overall, I was pleased with how everything went. I'm getting more and more confident with each lap and continue to build my learning. The long run in FP2 was good and gives us a strong platform for the rest of the weekend. We've got some work to do on the single lap to find a bit more performance; that is mainly linked to getting the tyres in the right window and something we will focus on improving overnight. We've got plenty of data to work with to do that ahead of Saturday. It is slightly too early to make any predictions on our relative performance. We don't know what the other teams are doing, and we were offset on tyre strategy today. The car was feeling good though and we will see what we can do in Qualifying tomorrow."

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: "Today was a solid start to the new season. We were able to run cleanly in both sessions and gather good data across all compounds. Having come from a surprisingly cold three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain, it was useful to continue building our knowledge of the W16 on a different type of circuit and in warmer conditions. The car was behaving well, particularly on the long run and the harder C3 and C4 compounds. Looking at the headline times, we've got some work to do on improving our single lap performance on the Soft compound ahead of Qualifying. We've already got some areas of focus though and are confident we can take steps to do that overnight. As was expected ahead of the weekend, it looks close between several teams at the front. We were slightly offset with our tyre choice in FP2 so it's hard to predict the relative order. What we can say though is that even small improvements will likely make a big difference. We will be working hard this evening, and in conjunction with the teams back at Brackley and Brixworth, to do this.

Team Report: "Friday was the latest chance for us to learn more about our new car, the AMR25. A mix of shorter and longer runs were conducted over the course of the day, as the team assessed the car's pace over one lap for Qualifying and a longer distance for Sunday's race. Both Lance and Fernando clocked up good mileage, recording 98 laps between them over the two sessions. The team tried a few different car setups on both cars as they continue to optimise the AMR25 for the high-speed Albert Park Circuit, and also learn more about its strengths and areas for further improvement on a different racetrack to Bahrain International Circuit."

P9: Lance Stroll: "It's great to be back at Albert Park. The circuit has a nice flow and is fast-paced. We got a good amount of running in practice as we continue to learn about the AMR25. It's nice to be inside the top 10 in both practice sessions but obviously it's tomorrow that really matters. We found some positives but also some areas we want to improve upon, so we'll work hard tonight to try to optimise the car for Qualifying."

P13. Fernando Alonso: "It's always good to get into the first Grand Prix weekend of a new season. We're continuing to learn about the AMR25, and we tried a few different things today with the setup to inform our direction for the rest of the weekend. Of course, it's only Friday so there's lots to study and analyse, which we'll be doing this evening ahead of Qualifying."