F1 Australian GP: Verstappen beats Hamilton but spins in FP1

Red Bull’s Verstappen set a quickest lap of 1m18.790s to end the session ahead of Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, who jumped up the order late on after initially struggling with the handling of his W14. Hamilton had been adrift of his team-mate George Russell during the early exploratory laps on the harder tyres.

Sergio Perez took third in the second Red Bull ahead of Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso, although the former’s best time was set on the mediums, as he went off track on his soft-tyred run.

Then came Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who had an off-track moment midway through the session after the rear of his SF-23 snapped right running through the Turns 1-2 complex.  

Several drivers had similar issues, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda’s off the most dramatic as he spun and his AT04 bounced into the air after it hit the gravel trap in the runoff behind the left/right sequence.

Heavy wind gusted across the Albert Park track at this point all through FP1, which likely contributed to the many issues the drivers were having once they began to press on the soft compound tyres in early qualifying simulation runs.  

Lando Norris took seventh for McLaren ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Russell and Lance Stroll, who rounded out the top 10 in the second Aston. Stroll was the only other leading car runner to set their personal best on the mediums.

Although he led the way, Verstappen’s session was not smooth, as he regularly missed the Turn 1 apex and at one point had to catch a big oversteer snap going through the quickly following Turn 2.

In the closing stages, he climbed too far over the Turn 4 exit kerbs, while pushing on well-used softs, and spun off sideways – at the same spot where Sebastian Vettel crashed his Aston in the 2022 race here last year after making a similar mistake.  

Just past the halfway point, the session was suspended when the GPS system used by the F1 organisation, the FIA and the teams went down. Several drivers had near misses due to their squads being unable to inform them of other cars approaching with big speed differences.

This led to a nine-minute red flag, with a second stoppage following in the closing minutes as Logan Sargeant stopped his Williams at the exit of Turn 11 due to a suspected electric issue.

Cla	Driver		Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Max Verstappen		17	1'18.790			241.157
2	Lewis Hamilton		20	1'19.223	0.433	0.433	239.839
3	Sergio Perez		19	1'19.293	0.503	0.070	239.627
4	Fernando Alonso		23	1'19.317	0.527	0.024	239.555
5	Charles Leclerc		16	1'19.378	0.588	0.061	239.371
6	Carlos Sainz		20	1'19.505	0.715	0.127	238.988
7	Lando Norris		16	1'19.536	0.746	0.031	238.895
8	Pierre Gasly		22	1'19.646	0.856	0.110	238.565
9	George Russell		23	1'19.699	0.909	0.053	238.407
10	Lance Stroll		19	1'19.766	0.976	0.067	238.206
11	Alex Albon		21	1'19.766	0.976	0.000	238.206
12	Oscar Piastri		22	1'19.777	0.987	0.011	238.173
13	Nico Hulkenberg		19	1'19.806	1.016	0.029	238.087
14	Nyck de Vries		25	1'19.933	1.143	0.127	237.709
15	Logan Sargeant		21	1'20.074	1.284	0.141	237.290
16	Esteban Ocon		20	1'20.175	1.385	0.101	236.991
17	Yuki Tsunoda		14	1'20.399	1.609	0.224	236.331
18	Valtteri Bottas		21	1'20.419	1.629	0.020	236.272
19	Zhou Guanyu		22	1'20.569	1.779	0.150	235.832
20	Kevin Magnussen		17	1'21.147	2.357	0.578	234.152
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