Lando Norris topped an action packed first practice for the Australian GP in Melbourne, the McLaren driver leading an incredibly tight session marked by a red flag triggered by a big crash for Williams’ Alex Albon.
Norris edged championship leader Max Verstappen, with Mercedes’ George Russell in third, but mistakes and drivers running wide were the norm in the 60-minute workout.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Rb’s Yuki Tsunoda rounded off the top five, but the spread among the top seven runners was just 0.103s, which boded well for FP2 later today.
The F1 field was back to its regular contingent of drivers, with Carlos Sainz reporting for duty after his painful bout of appendicitis a fortnight ago that forced him to miss most of the Saudi Arabian GP weekend.
Air temperatures were sat at 18°C when the Albert Park circuit went green and Fernando Alonso head out first, his Aston Martin fitted with an array of aero measuring devices.
Mercedes’ George Russell was the first driver to post an – unrepresentative – time, with several drivers immediately lowering the “benchmark” by a massive 10 seconds.
The medium tyres appeared to be the compound of choice for the early running although big guns Leclerc and Verstappen were up and running on the soft.
Rotations at the top of the leaderboard were fast and furious, but eventually things began to settle down with Verstappen dipping into true benchmark territory with a 1m18.670s.
Meanwhile, over 20 minutes into the session, Alonso suffered a big moment while on a hot lap, the Spaniard running wide into the gravel at the high-speed Turn 10/11 complex and just narrowly avoiding a big hit with the wall.
The mishap spelled the end of the session for the Spaniard as a floor change was in order for the injured AMR24.
Up ahead, Norris dethroned Verstappen to take the top spot as he hammered in a 1m18.564s on the softs.
Minutes after Alonso escaped a painful fate, Russell also got the Turn 10 complex wrong, the rear of his W15 snapping sideways mid-corner but the Mercedes driver was fortunately able to cut the grass and avoid a massive crash.
Valtteri Bottas followed suit at the same corner, the Sauber charger entertaining fans with a 360 before getting going again.
But the first red flag of the weekend was triggered a minute later when Albon was pitched sideway into the wall at Turn 8 after hitting a kerb, the Williams driver inflicting a lot of damage to the right-hand side of his FW46, scattering debris in the process.
Luckily, the Anglo-Thai racer emerged unscathed from the hit, but there would be no lunch break for the Williams mechanics.
After a ten-minute neutralization, the session went green once again with ten minutes left on the clock.
On a push, Hamilton was off immediately as he got it wrong at Turn 1 but kept it out of the barriers. At that point, both Mercedes drivers were still lingering in the lower tier of the field.
Both Verstappen and Perez were also seen running wide and bottoming out, respectively at Turn 10 and Turn 13. Drivers were certainly made to work to keep it on the road in the session.
With less than a minute to go, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda popped up to third behind Norris and Leclerc, but just 0.057s off the McLaren driver’s best, confirming the extremely tight spread.
However in the dying seconds, a final shift among the frontrunners saw Verstappen and Russell slot into second and third, pushing Leclerc and Tsunoda down to fourth and fifth.
Thereafter followed Perez and Stroll, with the top seven separated by a more tenth of a second!
Sainz, Hamilton and Piastri completed the top ten, while Daniel Ricciardo led the second half of the field.
At the bottom of the timesheet, Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu and Bottas were once again the session’s bookenders.
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