The first Friday of the 2026 Formula 1 season at the Australian Grand Prix has come to an end, offering the first cautious technical conclusions from the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne. As expected during the opening weekend of a new championship campaign, the competitive picture remains fluid, but the two practice sessions already provided valuable insights into the relative strengths of the leading teams.
Ferrari concluded the first practice session with an encouraging one-two result, with Charles Leclerc setting the fastest time and Lewis Hamilton immediately behind him. However, there was already a question mark surrounding those lap times, with suspicions—later confirmed—that the Scuderia may have completed some of its runs using a particularly aggressive engine mapping compared to the settings used by rival teams.
In the second practice session the situation changed noticeably. Local hero Oscar Piastri took control of the timing sheets for McLaren, while the two Mercedes cars emerged as extremely competitive contenders, producing lap times that immediately caught the attention of the rest of the paddock.
F1 Australian GP: plenty of margin for improvement
Looking at the trends that characterized the first two official sessions of the Australian Grand Prix weekend, it becomes clear that Ferrari took a slight step back during the afternoon session—if it can be described that way. Once the early “glory runs” that animated the morning in Melbourne are set aside, the second session saw Mercedes and McLaren return to the front, providing what appears to be a more reliable snapshot of the overall performance picture.
As confirmed by the drivers themselves, several setup adjustments were introduced between the two sessions. Charles Leclerc spoke openly about an extreme setup solution that did not appear to deliver the expected results, a scenario seemingly confirmed by the rather nervous behaviour of the Monegasque driver’s car during the afternoon session.
The Ferrari SF-26 appeared noticeably less neutral compared to the morning session, showing a clear tendency toward oversteer, particularly when running on the harder C3 tyre compound. On the other side of the garage, Lewis Hamilton once again seemed comfortable behind the wheel, continuing the adaptation process to his new team.
Track evolution will play an important role throughout the remainder of the weekend. The grip level experienced during Friday’s running turned out to be lower than initially expected, a point also highlighted by Pirelli’s Mario Isola during the day. As more rubber is laid down on the Albert Park asphalt, teams will need to continuously adapt their setups to keep the cars within the optimal operating window.
However, a significant portion of the work carried out by the teams was probably focused on managing the available electrical power. According to the official documents released by the FIA, teams at the Melbourne circuit are allowed to recover a maximum of 8.5 MJ of energy during practice laps. This limit drops to 8 MJ for the race and further decreases to 7 MJ during qualifying.
In the slower section of the circuit—between Turns 11 and 13—the FIA has also allowed teams to run with a maximum reduction of 350 kW in MGU-K power. This effectively allows drivers to navigate the final corners using only the internal combustion engine if necessary, ensuring sufficient electrical energy can be either conserved or recharged.
When analysing the telemetry of the fastest laps recorded by the three teams currently at the front—Oscar Piastri with a 1:19.728, Kimi Antonelli with a 1:19.942, and Lewis Hamilton with a 1:20.049—some particularly interesting scenarios begin to emerge.
Starting from the assumption that during qualifying simulations drivers would normally limit battery recharging phases to clipping zones and braking events for obvious lap-time reasons, Piastri immediately contradicts this expectation.
The Australian driver arrives at the braking point for Turn 1 with the highest top speed of the three—308.5 km/h compared to 295.9 km/h for Antonelli and 290.8 km/h for Hamilton—before lifting off the throttle earlier and using a longer lift-and-coast phase than his rivals, by roughly 50 metres, before braking.
This trend repeats itself at the braking zone for Turn 3, although in a less pronounced manner, and again on the approach to Turn 6, where Piastri lifts approximately 88 metres before the corner. Lewis Hamilton also employs lift and coast, albeit more moderately, particularly into Turn 6 before the extremely fast section of the circuit, where he lifts for around 24 metres.
Kimi Antonelli, on the other hand, adopts a completely different recharging strategy. The Italian driver rarely releases the throttle before entering the braking phase, effectively reducing the amount of energy recovery occurring during the lift phase.
On the second straight Hamilton and Antonelli remain broadly in line with Piastri in terms of speed, although the Ferrari driver appears to benefit from a more aggressive power delivery.
In the long acceleration zone stretching from Turn 6 to Turn 9, Antonelli reaches a higher speed before losing ground during the super-clipping phase. This phase is particularly significant for all three drivers, with speed losses of around 40 km/h as the MGU-K applies approximately -250 kW of braking force to the internal combustion engine.
The Italian driver’s speed drops more dramatically than that of Hamilton and Piastri, but Antonelli then regains the advantage on the run toward Turn 11, showing a particularly pronounced speed advantage in that section of the track.
This situation highlights what appears to be a clear efficiency advantage for the German power unit, which seems capable of recharging a greater amount of electrical energy over the same distance compared to its rivals. It is worth remembering that even though McLaren uses the same Mercedes power unit, identical hardware does not necessarily translate into identical efficiency.
Finally, from the exit of Turn 11 it becomes evident that the acceleration curves of Hamilton and Piastri are less aggressive than that of Kimi Antonelli. The Ferrari and McLaren drivers may be taking advantage of the FIA-defined low-energy zone, relying more heavily on the internal combustion engine in this part of the circuit.
Antonelli, meanwhile, is able to deploy greater electrical energy from the MGU-K, recovering ground on both rivals. Interestingly, at Turn 12 the Bologna-born driver is the fastest of the trio—despite lifting more, probably thanks to the higher speed gained during acceleration out of Turn 11—while Hamilton records the lowest speed through that section.
From a gearbox and gear-ratio perspective, Piastri confirms a trend already observed during winter testing. The McLaren MCL40 frequently uses higher gears than its rivals, even when running the same power unit. This suggests that McLaren may be operating with shorter gear ratios, providing an explanation for the telemetry data observed.
F1 Australian GP: Mercedes looks threatening
Completing the analysis of the fastest laps, the final sector remains particularly significant when it comes to car balance and tyre management. Kimi Antonelli recorded the fastest intermediate time in this section, followed closely by Piastri (+0.043 seconds) and George Russell (+0.112 seconds).
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc follow immediately behind, with gaps of +0.247 seconds and +0.210 seconds respectively, likely influenced by the less-than-optimal balance experienced by the Ferrari drivers during the session.
In the first sector, however, Piastri dominates the field, followed by Hamilton at +0.099 seconds and the two Mercedes drivers just over two tenths behind.
Unfortunately, only the two Mercedes drivers completed enough laps to produce a truly representative race simulation. Nevertheless, those runs were extremely competitive. George Russell particularly impressed with the consistency of his lap times, averaging around 1:23.7 while running on C3 tyres that had already completed five laps.
Kimi Antonelli recorded an average of 1:24.1 under similar conditions, using the same compound that had completed seven laps. Charles Leclerc appeared particularly unsettled by the pace displayed by the Mercedes cars, stating that the gap looked larger than what Ferrari had expected based on winter testing.
The somewhat messy afternoon session, which included traffic and multiple interruptions, certainly did not help the teams—especially Ferrari. At this stage, Mercedes and McLaren appear to be in a slightly more favourable position compared to the Scuderia, with the two Mercedes W17 cars emerging as early favourites.
The comments from the two Mercedes drivers are relatively easy to interpret: confidence within the team is clearly growing after a strong opening day.
However, it is important to remember that there remains significant room for improvement for every team. Understanding tyre behaviour, refining setup configurations, and optimizing energy deployment strategies—particularly between the first and final sectors—will be crucial areas of development.
The two Ferrari drivers experimented with different energy delivery strategies during the sessions, using more aggressive or more conservative deployment in the first and final sectors of the track, which are precisely the areas where lap time differences can be created.
Attention will now also turn toward Red Bull, particularly Max Verstappen, whose team experienced a complicated afternoon session affected by reliability concerns. Their true performance level may therefore only become clearer as the Australian Grand Prix weekend continues.
Leave a Reply