Australian GP Friday Recap
An eventful Friday, with the looming threat of the FIA removing the much-needed Free Practice sessions.
Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia is hosting the third race of the Formula 1 championship. After the first 2 races dominated by Red Bull, and with Aston Martin securing the last podium spot on both, we head into the land of the kangaroos with high expectations. The circuit has been renovated, and turn 9 has been completely redesigned, allowing faster lap times.
A few teams like Red Bull, McLaren, and AlphaTauri are bringing upgrades. The FIA on the other hand, is making questionable decisions about the future of the sport; they want to remove practice sessions to be more environmentally friendly. Oh, and did I mention that the pit crew cannot climb the wall and celebrate like they do in every other motorsport category? Seriously, who is making all these draconian decisions?
Anyway, here is a recap of what happened on Friday, during Free Practice 1 and 2:
Free Practice 1
A few cars were already lined up before the session started. Everyone was doing installation laps, and trying to gain an optimal feeling of their cars.
We saw a lot of cars spin or go wide in a few heavy-braking curves. Drivers were pushing to the limits, exploring what the car is capable of doing under the aero-load they had. It looks like most drivers started with low front aero, and started increasing it little by little. We saw Tsunoda, Magnussen, Verstappen, and others spin or make mistakes when navigating through a corner.
A peculiar thing that happened halfway during the session was that the race track GPS malfunctioned, so the pit crew had no idea where their drivers were on the track. This resulted in heavy traffic on the second and third sectors of the track, and the FIA decided to call a red flag.
After 10 minutes, the issue was resolved.
Max Verstappen topped FP1 with Hamilton surprisingly in second. Perez finished 3rd, half a second slower than his teammate; Alonso in his Aston Martin was 4th, with a similar time. Ferrari clenched 5th and 6th.
The final minutes of FP1 were also halted by yet another red flag; this time the American driver, Logan Sargeant had to stop his Williams FW45 due to a technical issue. The session finished earlier than expected.
Free Practice 2
The session started with an overcast sky, with a looming threat of rain. The track surface was colder than in FP1, and rain forced teams to change their tires to intermediates, so lap times were a bit slower.
Despite the slower lap times achieved during the first minutes of the practice session, Alonso managed to improve his own time. On FP1 he did a 1:19.317, and on FP2 he did a 1:18.887. Leclerc finished second and also barely improved his time.
Once rain was present on most of the track, teams decided to fit intermediate tires and had their drivers go around the track; they were exploring the limits of grip, and how the tires behaved.
Intermediates were disappointing to say the least. A lot of drivers, like Hamilton, suffered rear wheel spin on the second-to-last corner and other parts of the circuit. For the looks of it, the tires will not be good for racing, and drivers will focus more on surviving. This was expected because Pirelli has done very little to improve their rain compounds.
Rain should not be a problem for the final practice, and qualifying session. The race is also expected to be under dry conditions.
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