The competitive tension has only increased after the first day of Australian Grand Prix practice for the first Formula 1 race of 2025.
There were fears from Bahrain testing that this was going to be a McLaren cakewalk. Well, it still might be – but the evidence from Friday suggested that Ferrari at least is a close match for the papaya cars.
Picking them apart is not straightforward because of the different ways they each conducted their runs. In the single-lap soft-tyred part, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc headed the times, over 0.1s faster than the two McLarens.
But the McLaren times came at the end of seven lap runs in the cases of both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Leclerc’s time, by contrast, came from a two-lap attack sequence. It was also evident that the McLarens were running lower drag levels than any of their main rivals, gaining more down the straights than they were losing through the corners.
Which might imply that, carrying more downforce, the Ferrari might be kinder on the rear tyres. Looking at their long runs there is some evidence to support that: Leclerc did two laps at the end of his 12-lap stint that were significantly faster than either McLarens were going at the time. But was that simply a function of Leclerc having started the stint at a gentler pace (which he did)?
On the race sim stints the McLarens showed the most consistent speed (if we forget for a moment the hard-tyred Mercedes) and until Leclerc produced those two late-run laps, it did look like McLaren all the way. But Leclerc did have that time in hand, so it’s poised in a fascinating way between the two cars going into Saturday.
Lewis Hamilton was not on Leclerc’s pace, around 0.4s off over a qualifying simulation and a couple of tenths slower over the same 12-lap race run.
“The car felt so much different to what I’ve ever experienced coming to this track,” said Hamilton. “So it took a little bit of bedding in through FP1, FP2 was definitely a little better but just building.
“But we’re slowly building and getting faster bit by bit.”
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The Mercedes seemed unable to access the greater grip of the tricky soft C5 tyre, leaving George Russell and Kimi Antonelli only 10th and 16th respectively in the headline times. But it was reasonably quick when everyone else was on the C4 medium.
Both Mercedes drivers ran the C3 hard tyre for their long runs and it’s reckoned to be the best tyre over a race stint. Therefore Russell and Antonelli’s position in the long run list (second and fourth) is flattering. There’s work still to be done in accessing the full potential of the car, in particular how to prepare the C5 for a qualifying lap.
“There’s clearly a bit of pace in the car,” said Russell, “and it’s just getting the most out of the tyres so we need to understand why that is.
“Let’s see what we can achieve overnight. If the session stops after the hard or medium tyre, definitely I’d say we’re there or thereabouts but you don’t qualify on the hard or medium tyre, you qualify on the soft tyre and we don’t seem so competitive on that one. I’m sure we’ll find some improvements tonight.”
Mercedes has evidently committed fully to the forecast for a wet race. Because if it’s dry, the hard tyre is the favoured one and now its drivers have only one set apiece. Strategically, it’s set to be close between a one-stop race and a two, so the flexibility of the C3 hard will be valuable in the dry. But irrelevant if much of the race is wet.
Red Bull appears still to be in an earlier stage of optimising its car than its three rivals, with Max Verstappen around 0.5s off over a single lap, the car struggling to maintain a consistent balance from the beginning of the lap to the end when on the C5. His stint average was around 0.3s off with a significantly shorter stint length.
The position of the Williams drivers in the headline times (11th and 12th for Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon, on identical times but different tyres) is not reflective of just how good the Williams is here.
Sainz was second in FP1 and when on the medium tyre in the first part of FP2 was on a par with Mercedes and Hamilton’s Ferrari. But he couldn’t even match his medium time when he switched to the soft.
The Williams is the class of the midfield, even though the Racing Bulls displayed a better turn of single-lap pace on the softs (with Yuki Tsunoda and starring debutant Isack Hadjar going fourth and sixth). Alex Albon’s long-run was on paper the third fastest, but that’s flattered a little by how few hard laps he did (seven) after giving the tyres many cooling-off laps.
So, close up front between McLaren and Ferrari, potential pace to be released from Mercedes and Red Bull, and with both Williams and the Racing Bulls capable of springing a shock to the big teams.
As for the others, it was a disappointing day for Alpine, Aston Martin and Haas (not least from Oliver Bearman, who took no part in FP2 after his heavy FP1 crash).
For Sauber, the update since Bahrain seems to have brought a step-change improvement in performance, with Nico Hulkenberg showing a potentially Q2 level of performance.
