Category: Formula 1

Lando Norris was fastest in first practice, setting a 1m18.564s lap, while Leclerc paced FP2 with a quickest time of 1m17.277s.

Australian GP FP1 results: Norris fastest from Verstappen

What happened in Australian GP Free Practice 1?

Norris set the pace for McLaren in the opening session at Albert Park, edging out the Red Bull of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia GP winner Max Verstappen by just 0.018 seconds.

Third place went to George Russell in the first Mercedes, while Ferrari’s Leclerc made it four different teams inside the top four. Yuki Tsunoda was fifth for RB in an ultra-competitive session where the top eight were separated by just over a tenth.

FP1 was red-flagged after Alex Albon ran over the kerbs at Turn 7 and smashed his Williams twice into the barriers on either side of the track. He still managed to finish 12th based on his previous lap time.

Australian GP FP2 results: Leclerc fastest from Verstappen

What happened in Australian GP Free Practice 2?

With more much more rubber laid on the track, Leclerc was able to beat Norris’ FP1 benchmark by well over a second to top the times in the afternoon session.

Leclerc’s best effort of 1m17.277s put him almost four tenths up on Verstappen’s quickest time in the Red Bull, while Carlos Sainz rounded out a strong day for Ferrari in third.

Aston Martin duo Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were fourth and fifth quickest, while Russell was again the fastest Mercedes driver in sixth.

Albon missed FP2 after taking severe damage to his Williams in his earlier practice crash.

A 1m17.277s from Leclerc, his second hot lap on soft tyres, gave him a handy advantage over the rest of the field and put him clear of then runner-up Carlos Sainz, who was shuffled down to third by Verstappen’s later second soft run.

The Dutchman had been late to parlay with the other runners in FP2 owing to a spot of damage to his Red Bull RB20, sustained in a kerb strike during FP1, and thus continued running on the mediums as the others had long since switched to softs.

After collecting the soft tyres, Verstappen proceeded to match Sainz’s time to the thousandth, 0.43s short of Leclerc’s session best.

The Dutchman’s next lap was the last one that changed the order on the timing screens, as the rest of the field switched to longer runs across both the soft and medium tyres, and overturned Sainz by half a tenth on his next effort on the red-walled Pirellis.

Leclerc had topped the times during the early runs on medium tyres, setting a 1m17.936s with a healthy dose of tows along the straights – which made up for being hampered on his first hot lap of the Albert Park circuit early in the session.

This displaced Lando Norris’ 1m18.201s time also set on the mediums, the Briton having been top of FP1 earlier on in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso was first to take a set of softs and his first sector suggested that he was in line to move to the top of the pile, but a less stellar middle sector took the wind out of the Spaniard’s sails and left him just short of Leclerc’s then-headliner.

His Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll then set an impressive first sector too, following that up with a personal best in the second, but denied himself a chance to go fastest after fluffing his lines at Turn 13; the Canadian got acquainted with the grass and sapped away at his time.

The Aston Martin pair made up for it, however; Alonso moved Leclerc off the top on his next effort, but Stroll found a time 0.09s quicker than his veteran team-mate to sit atop the order as the session moved towards the half-way mark.

Leclerc reclaimed his place at the zenith of the timing board with a 1m17.423s with purple sectors in the first and third splits, although had not been able to beat his earlier best in the middle portion of the lap.

The Monegasque addressed that on his next attempt, poking home a 1m17.277s to further extend his advantage over Stroll, before Sainz then produced a 1m17.707s to move into second. Verstappen then split the Ferraris in the final 15 minutes.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, leaves the pit lane

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Stroll’s time over Alonso ensured that the ex-Williams driver ended the session in fourth, while George Russell sat behind the two-time champion in sixth.

Russell had matched team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s Turn 1 excursion from FP1 as the Mercedes W15 continued to look somewhat flighty over the course of a lap, but rallied to claim a position in the top six.

Home hero Oscar Piastri was 0.8s shy of Leclerc’s time to sit seventh overall, a smidgen clear of Sergio Perez, while Norris and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top half of the order.

Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu was 11th, having earlier baulked Verstappen on the exit of Turn 4 owing to a late radio call to move over, while Daniel Ricciardo beat Logan Sargeant to 12th.

Sargeant had sustained a spin after the opening 10 minutes of the session while on a personal best lap, where he took a liberal amount of kerb into Turn 11 and unsettled the rear as he attempted to wrestle his car over the exit run-off, ultimately with a wheel dipped into the gravel.

His Williams team-mate Alex Albon did not take part in FP2 following his shunt in the opening practice session of the day, where he clipped the Turn 7 kerb and was pitched into a side-on hit into the next barrier. Williams does not have a spare chassis, and is assessing if Albon’s car can be repaired for FP3 on Saturday.

Result:

Williams does not have a spare chassis on site but team principal James Vowles has confirmed that the option exists to switch Albon to Logan Sargeant’s car on Saturday, leaving the American on the sidelines.

Albon had a huge accident in FP1 in Albert Park, hitting a concrete wall with the right hand side of the car at high-speed before spearing across the track and striking the wall on the other side as well.

The team quickly confirmed that Albon, who was not injured in the impact, would sit out FP2.

It will now give the damaged chassis a thorough check via NDT [non-destructive testing] to determine if it can be repaired overnight under a curfew joker.

The call on whether or not to proceed with the work will be made this evening after FP2.

“It was a fairly big accident,” Vowles told Autosport. “The engine is damaged, the gearbox is split in two, and the chassis is damaged.

“It’s the worst you could have ever had. We do not have a third chassis here, that’s correct. So now it’s just whether we can repair this one.

“We have repair kits, fundamentally of those I’m not yet sure, because it’s a very serious accident and with what happened on the front [right] corner.”

Alex Albon, Williams Racing

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Vowles revealed that if Albon’s chassis cannot be repaired, the call could be made for him to take over Sargeant’s car as the senior driver and the man most likely to score points at what is usually a race of high attrition.

“One point here will make the difference between sixth and 10th potentially in the championship, simple as that,” he said.

“It just depends. I want to see how FP2 is, I want to see how the car performs. I want to see what options we have available to us on the chassis here as well.”

If the call is made for Albon to use Sargeant’s chassis the team will have to fit an engine and gearbox from the former’s own pool.

Vowles admitted that Williams had taken a calculated risk in not having a spare chassis available for the early races of the season.

“We have been very open and transparent that we were pushing everything to the absolute limit across the winter to get where we are, and sacrifices had to be made,” he said.

“And one of the sacrifices, which is a risk that you take, is you bring a spare hopefully to round about round three. It pushed just away from that.

“And so what you’re doing is suggesting that for this first part of the season, you can’t have a major accident. And it has not paid off in these circumstances.” 

The FIA Compliance Department looked into allegations from a whistle blower, who claimed president Mohammed Ben Sulayem attempted to influence officiating at the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix plus delay homologating the Las Vegas circuit.

He was ultimately unanimously cleared of wrongdoing, with the FIA stating there was “no evidence to substantiate” the accusations while they “greatly appreciated” Ben Sulayem’s “complete co-operation, transparency and compliance”.

Ahead of this weekend’s Australian GP, F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff confirmed that she has personally filed a criminal complaint in the French courts against the FIA after it started to look into a potential conflict of interest between her and husband Toto.

Supposedly, rival F1 team bosses complained that confidential information was shared between them. But all teams denied this and came out in strong support.

The FIA is also the channel through which a female Red Bull employee has lodged an official complaint against team principal Christian Horner.

With this backdrop, Ferrari F1 boss Fred Vasseur says there is no option other than to trust the FIA. He said: “I don’t think we have another option than to be confident.

“We don’t know who is the whistle blower; we don’t know what was the goal of the whistle blower. Don’t ask us to have an opinion at the end. We have to be confident with the system.”

Zak Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

He also suggested that F1 fans had little interest in the FIA’s handling of recent events and that it was instead the media responsible for keeping the allegations in the headlines.

Asked by Autosport about the incidences, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown stressed a need for “total transparency” from the governing body.

“All the items that have come to light in recent times are very serious situations,” he said. “We’re living in 2024, not 1984, which means total transparency.

“The three situations are different, but all very serious. We need to make sure that things are done in a transparent, truly independent manner. I think everyone should welcome transparency.”

However, RB CEO Peter Bayer – formerly F1 executive director at the FIA – warned that some elements needed to remain discrete so whistle blowers still felt empowered to come forward.

Bayer clarified: “[The FIA] are capable because there’s elected people who have roles, there’s an independent ethics committee. Since when I was there, we’ve established the compliance officer, whistleblowing hotlines.

“One thing that we see is the sport has grown massively in a very short amount of time. A lot of people are asking for transparency.

“I guess we will have to try and understand where we can have transparency because when it’s about individual topics or complaints coming through a whistleblowing hotline, you have to make sure there is absolute guarantee and protection of the people doing the whistleblowing.

“When it’s about employment contracts, those are anywhere on the planet not meant to be shared with anyone. So, it’s difficult. But as a sport, we have to learn and grow through these processes and hopefully can come back and focus on racing…

“We have to have confidence in the organisation. It’s the same when we have a stewards’ decision or other. Sometimes we might not like the decisions but ultimately, we have to be happy with the process.”

Fernando Alonso led the pack out of the pits with a large aerodynamic-load measuring device fitted to the front of his Aston Martin and its new front wing, but it was George Russell who initially set the first-place benchmark at 1m30.214s.

This was, however, almost 10s off the early pace and Russell was quickly shuffled back during the early running – where both Mercedes drivers complained about long brake pedals and the circuit surface gained grip as it cleaned up and had rubber laid down upon it.

The top spot changed hands throughout the opening third of the one-hour session, where only Verstappen, Perez and Leclerc ran the softs from the off, with the rest on mediums.

Perez and Leclerc exchanged quickest times on the red-walled rubber, with the former running an unbroken initial stint, while the latter joined Verstappen in making a trip to the pits for quick adjustments.

Leclerc took his first set of softs back to the top spot on a 1m19.110s at the 15-minute mark, just before Verstappen beat that with a 1m18.670s and a lull in action then followed.

The most notable moments in the next phase were Yuki Tsunoda putting his medium-shod RB in between the two early leaders and Alonso losing the rear of his car through the Turn 10 high-speed right that follows Turn 9 at the end of the meandering, fast walled run from Turn 6 and skating across the exit gravel at high-speed before returning to the pits.

Just before the halfway point, with most of the cars still in the pits during the lull, Norris moved into first place with McLarens first run on the C5 softs, which were barely used by any team during Bahrain pre-season testing, on a 1m18.564s.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

As the pack headed out in dribs and drabs through the start of the session’s second half, the majority ran softs and were able to edge ahead of the initial frontrunners.

This included Lance Stroll, who edged ahead of Verstappen – the Red Bull having headed back out at this stage on the same set of softs and not going any quicker – and Tsunoda again, by this stage running the softs.

As the final third kicked off, Leclerc slotted in a personal best on the second flier of his second set of softs to sit just 0.035s behind Norris, just before the session was suspended by Albon’s big crash.

The Williams driver’s FW44 snapped violently right after he ran hard over the Turn 7 inside kerb, which pitched him rapidly into the wall before he bounced back across the track to hit the opposite wall, smashing both sides of the car.

This showered debris over a long section of this high-speed blast and the session did not resume until just nine minutes remained, once the pieces had been gathered and the Williams removed – Albon having been quickly collected by the medical car but having declared himself “ok”.

All the cars headed back of the final run to the flag, with most staying on used softs that they struggled to warm in the relatively cool Melbourne conditions.

This led to a series of offs from high-profile drivers – Lewis Hamilton at Turn 1 on his first softs flier of the session, Verstappen at the exit of Turn 10 when he was on track to topple Norris, and Perez at the penultimate corner just as he was about to set a personal best.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Mark Horsburgh / Motorsport Images

Verstappen had enough time to go for a final flier in the last minute, where he jumped to second and 0.018s off Norris – but without setting a personal best.

Russell, who had lost his first softs run saving a massive oversteer snap and subsequent off at Turns 9/10 just before the red flag, did likewise and slotted into third shortly after the chequered flag fell.

But the general lack of late personal bests from the rest set the following order at Leclerc in fourth ahead of Tsunoda, Perez, Stroll, Carlos Sainz and Hamilton, who did finally get a lap softs flier in at the end of the session.

Home heroes Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo rounded out and just missed the top 10 respectively in the 10th and 11th, while Alonso ended up only 18th having missed most of the middle phase of the action when the floor on his Aston was replaced following his early off.

F1 Australian GP – FP1 results:

The French team slipped down F1’s pecking order in its transition to its new A524 chassis, and has failed to recapture its regular position in challenging for points from last season as the early-spec car has lacked outright pace.

This has coincided with a wider performance gap between the top five teams and the bottom five, effectively leaving the drivers in the latter group having to wait for retirements in order to claim points.

After the quintet of Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin locked out the top 10 in the Bahrain opener, Lance Stroll’s early retirement from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix opened an opportunity for a sixth team to trouble the scorers – which Haas and Nico Hulkenberg duly took in Jeddah.

Ocon says that the current chasm in performance means that well-executed races will likely yield little in reward, which he admitted was tough to swallow.

“It’s the worst feeling you have, and I honestly hate that when you do a good weekend, and I’m not able to enter the top 10 and score points in the race, there’s no reward for you at the end,” Ocon said.

“But it’s up to us to try and figure out, and get more performance and get closer to these cars.

“It’s tough to go through a weekend and push as hard as you can, also mentally to be doing the maximum, knowing that there could be no reward in the end.

“But it’s part of the job; you need to do the best you can with what you have in hand, and that’s why I’m here.”

Esteban Ocon, Alpine

Photo by: Alpine

RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was more hopeful in his assessment of the current pecking order, suggesting that any given circuit could create a situation where one of the top five teams falls down the order.

He used last year’s Mexican Grand Prix as an example, where the Australian put his car fourth on the grid despite the then-AlphaTauri team having been glued to the bottom of the constructors’ championship throughout most of 2023.

“My approach is ‘maybe this track suits us more than the last track’; these things can also be very track dependent,” the Australian remarked.

“You know most of the time where the fast cars are, but Mexico last year we were last in constructors at the time I qualified fourth. 

“Coming into that weekend, no one would have ever expected that. You can have a good weekend like that and drive well, whatever, but the car obviously works better in that circuit. 

“So there’s always bit of hope that you also hold on to coming into every weekend, so I’m always excited.”

Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas suggested that extending the points-paying positions beyond the top 10 would help given the current spread of performance, and inject more battles into the bottom half of the order.

That being said, he added that it might not be necessary if the 2026 rules create a more varied field.

“In this situation, I think [awarding points outside of the top 10] would be more optimal. But who knows what the future holds?” the Finn explained.

“Maybe with the new regs in 2026, maybe it will be more mixed, so then top 10 is enough. 

“But, now it seems to be pretty clear order in terms of the top five teams. After that, it is close. But Hulkenberg scored only one point right, so he is only one driver in that other end who has scored.

“It would actually mean that if you are in P15 towards the end of the race, you still keep fighting and trying to get to the points. That would be different.”

Mercedes W15 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

A look under the covers at the Mercedes W15’s power unit installation, along with the ancillary components such as the radiators within the sidepods and the cooler mounted above and behind the engine.

Williams FW46 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

As the Williams FW46 is prepared for action, we’re able to see the internal makeup of the front brake assembly. A disc fairing is used to control how heat is exchanged between the brakes and the wheel rim, which in-turn influences the tyre’s bulk temperature.

Also note the use of horizontal fins across the width of the brake caliper, while tube-like fins are employed in the upper section to help manage heat, as weight has been removed from the main body.

RB F1 Team VCARB 01 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

A look under the covers of the VCARB01’s power unit and ancillaries installation, with a large saddle cooler employed on the car’s centreline.

Red Bull Racing RB20 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

A wide angle shot of the RB20 as it is prepared gives us a view of the bib and damper arrangement.

We are also able to see how the team is employing a window in its front brake disc fairing this year, in order to allow some of the heat being generated a corridor to the rest of the internal volume under the drum cover.

RB F1 Team VCARB 01 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The VCARB01’s floor is left unattached beneath the chassis during construction which affords us a view of the floor fences and the floor’s leading edge.

Mercedes W15 detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Another look under the W15’s covers, this time more rearward, which gives us a view of some of the inboard rear suspension elements, whilst the wedge-shaped floor mount that’s connected to a metal stay is also notable.

Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber C44 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Sauber has a new front wing at its disposal this weekend, and here’s a great look at the assembly from above.

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The front wing endplate diveplane on the Haas VF-24 has a double kick, rather than having the simpler geometry we’re used to seeing. Meanwhile, Haas also has a similar lower endplate rear quarter cutout and semi-detached flap arrangement to the one used by Mercedes throughout this ruleset.

A top-down overview of the Aston Martin AMR24’s front wing which has revised upper flaps for the Australian Grand Prix, as the team looks to better balance its qualifying and race pace.

A close up of the RB20’s front suspension and chassis layout, with the floor and chassis intersection blister a notable feature, whilst the overbite sidepod panel is also clear in this side view.

Red Bull Racing RB20 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

At the rear of the car, we can see the cooling arrangement that the team fancies for this venue, whilst also taking in the rear suspension detail and the rear wing downforce level being employed.

The Mercedes W15 is once again set up with the upper rear leg of the wishbone in the higher position, given it can lower the member. This image also gives us a nice view of the P-shaped sidepod inlet and the undercut bodywork thereafter.

The W15 is also set up with the higher downforce rear wing used in Bahrain and trialled in FP3 at Saudi Arabia by Lewis Hamilton. However, there’s no Gurney fitted to the trailing edge of the upper flap yet, and the edge appears to have been slightly trimmed too.

A look down over the top of the C44’s endplate and how the angle of the surface allows a wedge-shaped diveplane to be used within the confines of the allowable box region.

The Ferrari SF-24 set up with just a single outlet on the engine cover’s interchangeable cooling panel.

It is often taken for granted that racing drivers can do things like that, and after all, it’s only a couple of years since Alex Albon performed a similar feat, returning in Singapore after missing the Italian Grand Prix following an appendix removal.

Albon, however, had two free weekends between races, so what Sainz is doing this weekend should not be underestimated.

Melbourne on Thursday was the first opportunity for the Spaniard to fully explain how his Jeddah weekend unfolded.

He didn’t feel well on Wednesday, heading back to his hotel early and missing media activities. And yet on Thursday he somehow managed to complete 50 laps across the two practice sessions, taking seventh place in FP2.

“At the time it was honestly very difficult to know it was appendicitis,” he explained. “What I know is on Wednesday I started to feel really bad in the paddock and I got the typical symptoms of food poisoning. I don’t think I need to go into details of what that is!

“I got a very high fever also. And I spent Thursday also with those symptoms, but obviously with medication. When I was jumping in the car, I was feeling a lot better, because I was getting the medication.

“But then after those two sessions, I realised I cannot keep going like this for the whole weekend. So if I’m not improving, I’ll go to the hospital.

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

“I didn’t improve, and the morning of the Friday, which was qualifying day, I went to the hospital and I got diagnosed with appendicitis, which was not easy to diagnose, because my analysis and the test that they were doing, it was not clear.

“So I didn’t have the typical symptoms of appendicitis. But they were pretty convinced it could be, and I got the surgery done.

“It was a great job from the doctors because as soon as I got it removed, I felt back to normal, back to better, obviously with surgery, and I could start focusing on recovering.”

Sainz flew back to Europe on the Sunday after the race to begin his recuperation, the sole target being to get on the plane to Australia and be ready to drive the car in FP1.

He was not able to do his regular training, and it was also decided not to travel to Maranello for sim running in order to focus all his energies on his recovery. The recuperation wasn’t as easy as expected.

“Every day I’m feeling obviously a lot better,” he said. “Now, every 24 hours that I do, I do a lot of progress. It’s true that the first week was tough, a lot of time in bed and recovering. And that’s when you see things a bit darker.

“But then in the second week, the recovery speeds up a lot. And I started to feel a lot better. So yeah, I’m confident that I can jump in the car tomorrow and do well.

“Obviously, I put together a very strong recovery plan since day one that I landed back home to be ready for this race.”

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

He was helped by the fact that an appendix removal, while not exactly pleasant, is not quite as dramatic an operation as it was just a few years ago.

“First of all it’s possible thanks to the advances that the medicine has done in the last 20-30 years,” Sainz explained. “When my dad had the operation, and maybe some of you guys had it 30 years ago, they cut you open.

“Nowadays, with laparoscopy, they do three very little holes, that speed up the recovery. It’s twice as fast or three times as fast as it used to be.

“So thanks to that is why even the doctors after the operation, they said it’s obviously going to be tight, it’s 14 days from the operation day till I jump in the car on Friday, but possible.

“Obviously, they don’t know what F1 is and the g-forces and everything. Will I be at 100%? For sure not.

“It’s not a lie, 100% would mean spending 10 days training, and doing the simulator. I haven’t done that over the last 10 days, I’ve just been focused on recovering.

“But will I be fit to race? The feeling right now is yes, and I’ll see how I feel tomorrow and judge tomorrow.”

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

As noted he’s missed out on his regular training since Jeddah and given how much effort drivers usually put in it would be expected to be a drawback, but Sainz insists it won’t be.

“The amount of training that I did in the winter and how fit I was in Jeddah and Bahrain, actually, thanks to that, I feel like I’m going to be fit tomorrow, because it’s not like in two weeks you lose muscle or you lose aerobic capacity,” he explained.

“Obviously, it’s not the same as spending 10 days training like I would have done and going to the simulator. But that’s why I say I’m not going to be 100% fitness level peak, but fit enough to race. I think that that will not be a limitation.”

“I also found a lot of support from Alex Albon in this case, because he went through a similar process. I think he got a few extra days than me just because he was operated on a bit earlier. And I asked him, he said yes, you will feel a bit weird at the beginning. But then you get used to it, it’s normal.

“So let’s see. The problem is I don’t know – until you put yourself in an F1 car and feel the forces, it’s impossible to know.

“What I know is that today I am a lot better than yesterday, and yesterday I was a lot better than two days ago. So also with that progress, I’m quite encouraged, and positive.”

Alex Albon, Williams Racing

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

For the return of ground effects in 2022, Mercedes pioneered its distinctive size-zero sidepod car concept but concluded its defence of the constructors’ title with only one grand prix victory.

Having run the car too low that year, Mercedes raised the platform for 2023 but hit an aerodynamic performance ceiling to prompt major bodywork design changes from Monaco.

For this year’s W15 challenger, Mercedes has adopted a more conventional downwash sidepod architecture to cure lingering rear-end instability, but enters this weekend’s Australian GP only fourth in the points, having fallen behind Ferrari and McLaren.

But Hamilton insists the fundamental car platform still has plenty to offer and it is not an “evil sister” – with team boss Toto Wolff having previously described ground-effect Mercedes as a “diva”, “miserable thing” and “nasty piece of work”.

Hamilton said: “It’s definitely not that evil sister or anything like that. I do think we have an amazing car; it has a lot of potential in it. We just haven’t maximised it at the moment through set-up.

“We’re obviously not happy with the performance in those first couple of races. But I think there’s a lot more potential in it that we just haven’t quite extracted yet.

PLUS: Why Mercedes’ F1 struggles are different this time

“So, that’s what everyone’s focus is on, just trying to understand the car. We’re hoping this weekend is a step forward.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“A huge amount of work has gone on – everyone’s heads are down in the numbers. I feel positive this weekend. We’ve had two not such great races, but there’s a long way ahead.”

Team-mate George Russell has previously complained that Mercedes appears to be regressing as race weekends wear on, with the team falling back from the decent pace shown in the opening practice sessions. But he reckoned this was a case of Mercedes suffering from a lack of testing.

“We only done three days of practice and two races,” he said. “If you compare that to a football team, if they have done three days of training together, in the first two games of the season, they’ll still be understanding how to get the most out of each other and maximise the team.

“We’ve learned so much from the first two races. I think we’re all definitely going out [in Melbourne] to test a lot of things on the car to get a better handle on how to get the most out of this.”