Piastri submits promising performance leading into Saturday's first qualifying of the year

It was advantage Ferrari over reigning World Champions McLaren in Friday practice for the Australian Grand Prix.

Charles Leclerc fastest ahead of Oscar Piastri, who set the standard with a 1:16.439 lap around Albert Park, 0.124s ahead of the Aussie, who in turn finished just ahead of his teammate Lando Norris.

The Aussie hometown hero was rather pleased with second fastest, however made clear that come Sunday, he would not be resting on his laurels.

“I would say pretty encouraging. I think the pace was pretty solid. Still a few things to try and iron out and make the car a bit nicer, but I think the underlying pace seems strong, so I’m pretty happy with the day’s work,” said Pisastri of his Friday performance.

“The weather’s going to be pretty different on Sunday, and it’s gonna throw some spanners in the works, but I think the underlying pace of the car seems strong. Ferrari looked pretty quick today, and then Mercedes at other points as well.

“I think things are looking good, but we don’t want to aim for just the podium, we want to aim for the top step.”

Further down the road, it was a Racing Bulls sandwich, with Yuki Tsunoda a surprising fourth ahead of Isack Hadjar on debut – with Lewis Hamilton splitting the pair in fifth in his first outing in red in an F1 practice session.

Max Verstappen was seventh for Red Bull, ahead of Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg in eighth – while Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin was ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes rounding out the top ten.

FP2 was largely bruise-free, with the most significant issue being a number of drivers running wide at turn six, which in 2025 sees an increased amount of gravel closer to the edge of the track, in an attempt to enforce track limits and prevent drivers running too wide.

The same could not be said for FP1 – with two red flags seeing around 18 minutes of the 60-minute session lost. The first red flag was brought about by too much gravel on track, while the second was caused by Ollie Bearman for Haas becoming the first driver of 2025 to crash out after running wide and finding the gravel on the outside of turn 10.

Despite a valiant effort by the team to repair his car to allow him to take to Albert Park in the closing stages of FP2, it was not to be, with mechanics beaten the clock.

Jack Doohan struggled on his Friday debut in Melbourne finishing in 14th - however he will take some solace from beating teammate Pierre Gasly, who finished one place behind in 15th.

FP3 for the Australian Grand Prix gets underway at 12:30pm AEDT Saturday, before qualifying at 4pm AEDT.