Verstappen tops Australian GP Practice 1 despite spin

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen has set the pace in Practice 1 for the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix despite a late spin.

The Dutchman went as fast as a 1:18.790s in the opening session of the weekend, with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton next-best at 0.433s off the pace at Albert Park.

Both of those drivers set their best lap times on the soft compound, while Sergio Perez was third on a 1:19.293s set on mediums in the other Red Bull.

The session was interrupted midway through by a red flag for GPS issues before coming to a slightly early end when Logan Sargeant’s Williams stopped at the side of the circuit.

In what was to have been an hour-long hit-out, Carlos Sainz kicked things off with a 1:25.314s in a hard tyre-shod Ferrari but that time was quickly usurped by the likes of Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri).

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll moved the marker to a 1:23.019s when he completed his first lap, before Hamilton set a 1:22.063s and then Perez a 1:20.267s, with those three all having started on the medium compound.

Perez’s Red Bull team-mate Verstappen, on the other hand, started on softs and notched up a 1:21.272s on his first lap, before going top with a 1:19.332s in the 10th minute.

Kevin Magnussen ran his Haas off the road at Turn 3 as the Red Bulls came back to their pit box before being sent back onto the race track, on the same compounds.

Perez improved to a 1:19.293s but Verstappen soon reclaimed the ascendancy with a 1:19.278s.

The world champion would subsequently drop a wheel into the gravel at Ascari, at which point he made a remark about “rear brake regen”, but it appeared little impediment when he subsequently shifted the benchmark to a 1:18.790s, late in his second run.

Just before the half-hour mark, Piastri jumped to fifth on a 1:19.777s after his McLaren was switched to softs, before the Ferraris moved into the top four with the red-walled rubber on their cars; Sainz on a 1:19.687s and then Charles Leclerc on a 1:19.378s on the half-hour mark.

Perez kicked up the gravel when he ran off the road at Turn 3, although his moment was mild in comparison to Yuki Tsunoda’s spin minutes later at Turn 1.

The Japanese driver’s AlphaTauri bounced backwards through the gravel trap but stayed off the barriers, and then Magnussen also avoided seriously damaging his Haas when he ran wide exiting Turn 10.

Traffic was also becoming a problem for several teams and drivers, with Hamilton gesticulating at Nyck de Vries when he had a close call with the AlphaTauri at Ascari, before Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) ran onto the grass at Turn 13 while trying to avoid a slow-moving McLaren on the inside of the track.

The session was then red-flagged in the 37th minute due to GPS issues, providing an explanation for the crazy traffic.

By then, Fernando Alonso had climbed to third on the timing screen with a 1:19.317s in his Aston Martin on soft tyres, but he switched to hards to go back out when the green flag came again with just under 15 minutes remaining.

The top five of the Red Bulls, Alonso, and the Ferraris was unchanged when Verstappen spun in the Lakeside Stadium car park due to straddling the Turn 4 exit kerb.

Hamilton then moved to second place on a 1:19.223s before matters came to a premature end thanks to the Sargeant Williams.

The top 10 was thus locked in as Verstappen, Hamilton, Perez, Alonso, Leclerc, Sainz, Lando Norris (McLaren), Gasly, George Russell (Mercedes), and Stroll.

Practice 2 starts at 16:00 local time/AEDT (UTC+11).

Results: Practice 1