The Friday in F1 Australian GP was hectic all-through as the order was scrambled, with a big shunt resulting in a unique decision.
The hectic Friday in F1 Australian GP saw a bit of a scrambled positioning where McLaren and Ferrari took their turns to end up on top, while Red Bull were in the chasing pack. Max Verstappen even lost time after floor damage which hampered his long run.
He noted about lack of running and needing to ascertain things for qualifying and race, where the Ferrari pair did look good. Charles Leclerc had more quality running where he could complete both the qualifying and race trim.
Teammate Carlos Sainz was still not 100% as he tried to balance the performance push and his health, but he seems to have done enough to at least complete the weekend. While Red Bull and Ferrari seem to be in their league, Aston Martin were close behind.
Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll looked good despite the former having floor damage in FP1. It was both the drivers in better shape unlike the Mercedes F1 pair where George Russell looked to be in a better groove than Lewis Hamilton.
He termed it as the ‘worst’ Friday he has had after the set-up changes from FP1 and FP2 only made it worse. McLaren, meanwhile, had a reasonable outing where both were satisfied with their runs but know the close competition.
Leclerc: “It feels good for now. We’ve had a positive day from the first laps in FP1 to the end of FP2, so that’s a good start. However, we need to keep working very hard because I’m sure that we’ll see some surprises tomorrow, and there’s no reason for us to be a bit in front compared to everyone else tomorrow as well. There’s still margin to improve in some things – our race run was pretty good which is encouraging, but let’s keep working. Everything is very tricky. It’s a very challenging track with quite high kerbs and the wind as well. There’s also only one line, whenever you get a bit off line then you lose a lot of grip, but it makes it quite fun, so for now, we are fast so we are enjoying it, but we need to wait and see tomorrow if we are as fast. The race pace looked quite strong, but again it’s very difficult to compare because some drivers had a lot of traffic – we had relatively clean laps. But it looked quite good, so better that it looks good on Friday than the other way around. It’s a good start, but we still need to keep pushing and see what’s possible tomorrow.”
Verstappen: “Unfortunately a little bit messy because of what happened in FP1. I went wide, damaged the floor and also the chassis. It took a little bit longer to fix that unfortunately, so I lost like 20 minutes. I do think the turnaround was very quick, we did it as a team so I more or less completed the programme still. Long-run, I would have liked maybe a few more laps, but with missing 20 minutes that’s how it goes. I think it was alright. I think Ferrari is quick, but from our side I think there are also a few more things that we can fine-tune, so nothing crazy, nothing worrying. I think, yeah, [we] just need to fine-tune a little bit the car.”
Hamilton: “I obviously don’t feel great. We had one of the worst sessions I’ve probably had for a long time. P1 generally felt quite good; the car actually in P1, run one, felt the best it’s ever felt, then it just got worse and worse. I made some changes, big changes into… well, we made some big changes into P2, and it was tough. After that session I feel the least confident I’ve ever felt with this car, but there are positives from that P1 run that we did.”
Sainz: “I feel okay, obviously a bit tired after a day of practice and not being 100 per cent physically, but I felt like I had a good day. I managed to complete the whole programme. If you would have told me a week ago that I could do the whole practice without issues and all that, I would have been very happy, and I’m very happy for that. Obviously I need a good night’s sleep and a good recovery for tomorrow, and yeah, I feel good. I think, particularly Charles looked very quick today. On my side obviously I took it step by step and kept into a bit of a rhythm, not at the limit of the car and not at the limit of myself yet. But I think with more laps and getting a bit more confident with how everything feels inside, I think I’ll be faster tomorrow and hopefully battle for that pole position… because I think it’s going to be tight. We saw in FP1, I think in FP2 we did a good step but, yeah, I think quali tomorrow is going to be more like FP1.”
Norris: “A reasonable day. We struggled to find a bit of confidence given the gusts of wind, so we didn’t get the best feeling, but I think the pace is reasonable. We’re in the mix, which is a good sign. It should make our lives exciting tomorrow – but we’ve still got a lot of work to do to make the most of it.”
Alonso: “It’s always tricky here at Albert Park – the track rubbers in quite a lot and the grip changes. That led to me running through the gravel at Turn 10 during FP1, so we had to change the floor during the session. Our programme was a little compromised due to that, but FP2 ran smoothly and we completed everything we set out to do. It’s always satisfying to be towards the top of the timesheet, but we won’t draw any conclusions from today as it’s only Free Practice and there are still plenty of variables to consider. We have a lot of data to now analyse in order to give us the best chance of getting a positive result in Qualifying.”
The Visa Cash App RB pair got themselves around the Top 10 mark, especially Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese once again looked to be in a good shape than teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who was savouring his return to his home F1 venue after missing out.
There was satisfaction at Haas too as they continue to understand and improve its race pace. It is a tight field but they seem optimistic to be around the Top 10 mark, as Stake F1 Team spent their time learning the new updates that they have in place.
Alpine too continued its learning programme as they try to get themselves out of the slump they are in. The two looked decent on the timing page but know the realistic situation, as Williams faced a rather unique situation which hasn’t happened in decades.
Due to the slowness at the factory, Williams only have two chassis of Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant, with no spare available. And their worst fears came true with the Thai crashing and the team eventually deciding to give Sargeant’s chassis to Albon.
Ricciardo: “Firstly, it was just nice to be back on track – it’s a good one. For myself, Oscar and Valtteri it’s obviously emotional. The crowd is crazy like you’d get at a rock concert, there are so many people here for a Practice day. I think Albert Park has always done a good job at keeping it full all day. You come to watch on a Friday and you don’t just see F1, it’s V8, Porsche, F2, 3 – it’s a lot. It’s good that Aussie motorsport is strong, and it’s reaching areas like Valtteri in Finland. I drove here in 2022 when they just made the track changes. It’s a lot faster than it used to be, it’s good. I think as a team we started the morning on the front foot, and I think this afternoon, the others found a little more. I think we’re definitely still within a shot of Q3 tomorrow. There are a lot of corners where, because it’s still a street circuit obviously, you put it on the edge. I think the conditions and grip were pretty good and it was fun to get into it. There’s a little bit of work to do tonight but nothing too crazy. As always, I think there’s a bit of finetuning of the car, and it should give us a good chance for tomorrow. In terms of race pace, with the little long run that we did, it seems okay. Let’s qualify in the top 10 and then it’ll all get easier from there.”
Hulkenberg: “It’s been very windy today and I think that’s why we’ve seen so many people go off; it makes it pretty tricky out there. It’s such a high-speed circuit now and there’s no margin for error, so you can get caught out very easily. Our Friday was fine with no issues, so it was the usual program to clean some things up for tomorrow. I feel our one-lap pace wasn’t shining today so we have a bit of homework to do to find some performance over one lap. I think in the long run, I felt better than on my low-fuel run, so that’s nice for a change as that wasn’t always the case last year but we’re trying to optimise both as much as we can.”
Guanyu: “It is always great to be back in Melbourne. The fans bring an incredible sense of passion which makes coming back to the track exciting. Today was about understanding our upgrades and the track evolution, and I found a good rhythm with the car. After both sessions, this feels like a car I could push with, and shows the efforts the team, both here and back in Hinwil, has been making. We had a few setting changes between FP1 and FP2, and each time we develop the car, it seems to be going in the right direction. Our front wing upgrade is designed to help with the overall car balance – and there is still more to extract and learn about the car over the weekend. As we continue to finetune our package, I am looking forward to the rest of the weekend and believe we might be fighting closer to the points.”
Gasly: “It’s been a busy day for us here in Melbourne. We had a couple of small issues on the car in Free Practice 1, which limited our running a little bit. We managed to fix those ahead of the second session to have a much better feeling in the car. The overall balance was in a good place. We were probably stronger on the Medium tyre and that means we have some work to do on the Softs, which we seemed to have more difficulties with. There’s some work ahead of us understand how best to get the tyres in the right window ahead of Qualifying. We know the situation we are in and we know it will be challenging so we will keep working hard to improve what we have in our hands. Tyre degradation looked quite high on long runs, which could mean the race will be more eventful.”
Albon: “I was just exploring a little bit, went a bit wide, had a bit of an aggressive kind of kerb strike and it lifted up the front. I honestly didn’t think anything of it at the time. I thought, ‘Okay, it’s fine, I’ll just back out and let the car land’, but when I did land I bottomed out pretty badly and when it bottomed out it just kind of spat me [into the wall]. It’s frustrating, of course, and obviously I just feel bad for everyone back at the factory and here at the track. It’s a lot of damage. Obviously it’s very frustrating for that reason.”
James Vowles: “The midfield is so incredibly tight that a point or two or more may make the difference at the end of the season between being 10th or being 6th. The spread of our cars at the moment is milliseconds. And as much as it pains me to see a driver that through no fault of their own won’t be racing on Sunday, I have to prioritise the team above all else. Logan has been tremendous. He’s here to support the team in this regard. He’s clearly very much hurting as a result of this decision but equally strong in as much as he knows the team above all else is the priority. As a result of the work that took place across the winter, we stressed the organisation to the absolute limit.
“We pushed everything as far as it could do. What it meant, as a result of that, is off the back end of being very late on some of the production, the spare chassis starts to move backwards. No team plans to come to an event without a spare chassis. In doing so you create risk. In the absolute best case it’s uncomfortable, and in the worst case, one of the cars is not racing. And that’s the situation we face today. We have to ensure that we never, ever put ourselves in that situation again going forward in the future. We are here to go racing, and to only have one car here on Saturday and Sunday simply isn’t what we’re built to do. The chassis will be back in the UK as quick as we can possibly make it, and will be repaired such as we are able to race again in Japan with two cars.”
Here’s news on Williams decision
Here’s how FP1 of F1 Australian GP panned out
Here’s how FP2 of F1 Australian GP panned out
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