Ferrari warns McLaren: qualifying and race pace analysis in Melbourne Friday practice. Australia: McLaren confirms its excellent form, but Ferrari is close behind.

Friday at the Australian Grand Prix offers an initial glimpse of the competitive landscape in the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season. At the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, the track and asphalt are significantly different from those in Bahrain, with softer tires also being used. The opening day is mainly characterized by the heat, with the track surface constantly above 40 degrees celsius, temperatures which are favorable for Ferrari. The Maranello team emerges as the main challenger to McLaren, with qualifying and race pace simulations suggesting a close battle. Max Verstappen is still struggling with a temperamental Red Bull, while even Mercedes doesn’t seem capable of threatening the leading duo.

First, let’s take a detailed look at the Ferrari and McLaren challenge. The headlines of the day go to Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, at the top of the timesheet, followed closely by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, both less than a tenth and a half behind. The MCL39 single-seaters are fast and well-balanced, with no exacerbation of the rear instability seen in Bahrain, despite the Australian heat. Lewis Hamilton is slightly behind, struggling more than his Ferrari counterpart to manage the understeering tendency of the SF-25 in high-speed corners, having difficulty making it rotate at the entry to attack the apex. These are still early times, but the understeering complained about by both Ferrari drivers could be the result of the new aerodynamic approach tried by the Maranello engineers and technicians, which have sacrificed entry responsiveness in favor of better stability through corners and better exit from high-speed turns.

The two rivals appear very close in the final sector, but differ elsewhere. The Red car dominates the first sector, which is quite varied and indicative, considering the presence of a direction change at around 200 kilometers per hour and a mixed section of medium-low speed. McLaren stands out in the second sector, dominated by the stretch leading to the 9-10 chicane, where straight-line performance shines.

In the first free practice session, the world champions try two different setups, with a more loaded rear wing and a less loaded beam wing for Oscar Piastri compared to Lando Norris, a setup that the British driver adopts in the second session. Despite the slipstream advantage enjoyed by McLaren’s representative, the British cars have a noticeable speed advantage over Ferrari’s rivals. The difference is likely due to a more conservative engine mapping for Ferrari, but also to a more loaded setup aimed at race pace and potential rain risks for Sunday.

Now let’s look at the qualifying simulation. In the comparison on a single lap, done almost simultaneously and under the same track conditions, Charles Leclerc emerges as the fastest. However, this result should be contextualized with the fact that both Ferrari drivers set their best laps on tires two laps fresher than the competition. Traffic is another variable that should not be overlooked, but especially in qualifying, the effectiveness in preparing the new tire will need to be evaluated, a practice in which McLaren excelled compared to Ferrari in 2024. Additionally, forecasts for Saturday predict ambient temperatures rising by another 10 degrees celsius, with the track surface expected to exceed 50 degrees celsius. As reiterated by Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, teams will need to be adept at anticipating track evolution and adjusting the setup rather than reacting too late.

The long-distance comparison presents a different picture, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having tires two laps fresher than Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. The race scenario confirms a tight contest between the teams from Woking and Maranello. McLaren adopts a more aggressive approach, while, as tradition dictates, Ferrari opts for a slower introduction of the tires, only to then lower their times even more than their rivals. Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris emerge as the fastest, but the comparison is interrupted by traffic encountered by Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli, respectively. The Ferrari driver then takes a cooling lap, making the final 1.20.8 less representative. A more indicative time is Lewis Hamilton’s final 1.21.3, compared to Lando Norris’s 1.21.5, who was hindered by Kimi Antonelli.

What is clear is that Mercedes and Red Bull are trailing. At the moment, the fight for victory seems to be a private matter between the two teams that contested the last Formula 1 constructors’ championship. Max Verstappen finishes Friday in seventh place, six-tenths off the top, the same gap he had to his teammate Liam Lawson. The RB21 single-seater remains unpredictable, forcing the Dutch driver to make numerous corrections, especially in the slow corners, followed by obvious signs of frustration. The work schedule shows that Red Bull is still looking for a base setup. Both cars are fitted with the updated floor seen at the end of the Bahrain pre-season testing session, but the two drivers spend the entire day with different front wings, gathering comparative data. These experiments force the team to sacrifice the race simulation, with Max Verstappen’s times benefiting from the more rubbered-in track and fresher tires compared to Ferrari and McLaren.

Mercedes is not performing well either, raising the question of whether the Silver Arrows are again susceptible to the heat like their predecessors. Last year, it was not uncommon for the Brackley cars to start strong on Friday only to miss the mark in the qualifying session, with the hope being that the slow start this time could be the prelude to a turnaround. Remembering the price paid for excessive aggressiveness at Monza, Kimi Antonelli prefers a more progressive approach this time, keeping the gap to George Russell to 3 tenths. In his race simulation, the Englishman sets respectable times, benefiting from the greater consistency of his hard tires compared to the medium tires of his rivals.

The convergence therefore continues. Friday in Melbourne confirms the balance in the midfield, where establishing the hierarchy is definitely challenging. Williams first, and then Racing Bulls, opt for an aggressive approach with engine mappings and fuel loads, placing themselves between the four top teams with respectable times, but not necessarily representative. What is definitely concerning, however, is the situation at Haas, constantly in the back and hindered in their preparations by Oliver Bearman’s accident. The FP2 standings show 14 drivers within 1 second of each other, compared to the 10 from the previous season, reflecting the increasing balance from the top to the bottom of the grid.

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