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Australian GP FP2 FP1 Results – I’m back from the track after a fun-filled day one and here’s what happened in today’s action on the streets of Albert Park.

 

 

Australian GP FP2: Leclerc fastest over Verstappen, Sainz

 

 

Leclerc Australian GP FP2 – Charles Leclerc was fastest in FP2 at the Australian GP ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz who rounded out the top three.

 

Leclerc posted the benchmark of a 1:17.277 on the C5 red side-walled softer compound and was 0.361 seconds clear of Verstappen whilst Sainz was a further 0.430 adrift of his session-topping team-mate.

 

Verstappen shuffled Sainz down to third on his second soft tyre stint.

 

The reigning world champion had to parlay with his rival competitors in Free Practice Two owing a bit of damage to his RB20 racer, which sustained damage from a kerb strike during opening practice and thus continued running on the C4 yellow-branded medium rubber as others had long been on the softer tyre.

 

After switching for the softs, Verstappen went on to match Sainz’s effort to the thousandth, 0.43 short of Leclerc’s best.

 

The Red Bull drivers’ next flyer was the one that changed the order on the time-sheets, as the rest of the pack were gathering data on their longer runs across both the softs and mediums, and overturned Sainz by half-a-tenth on his next hot lap on the red-marked Pirelli C5’s.

 

Leclerc topped the order during the early proceedings on the C4 mediums, setting a 1:17.936 with a healthy assistance of slipstreams along the straights – which made up for being hindered on his initial flyer of the Albert Park Street Circuit in the early phase.

 

This deposed Lando Norris’ time of a 1:18.201 also posted on the mediums, as the McLaren driver headed the times in the earlier Free Practice 1 session.

 

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was the first put on a set of the softer compound and his opening sector suggested that the Spaniard was set to hit the top of the order, but a less stellar sector two effort saw him fall less than two tenth’s off Leclerc’s benchmark.

 

His Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll then posted a brilliant sector one also, following that up with a personal best in the middle sector, but denied himself a shot at moving to the head of the pile after messing up the penultimate corner; the Canadian locking up and running onto the grass ad sapped away at his effort.

 

However, the Aston Martin duo made up for it, Alonso knocked Leclerc off P1 with his next flyer, but Stroll found time, which was 0.09 seconds faster than his double world champion team-mate to sit at the top as the session hit the midway point.

 

Leclerc reclaimed top spot, posting a 1:17.423 with purples in the opening and final sectors of the Albert Park Circuit, although he was unable to beat his earlier best in the middle part of the tour.

 

The Ferrari driver fixed that on his next attempt, setting a 1:17.277 to further extend his advantage over Stroll, before Sainz then posted a 1:17.707 to jump to second then Verstappen split the Ferrari SF-24 entries with 15 minutes left on the clock.

 

Stroll’s effort over team-mate Alonso ensured that the Canadian ended the session in fourth place, whilst Mercedes’ George Russell sat behind the Aston Martin driver in sixth.

 

Russell had matched his Mercedes’ team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s turn one off-track excursion from FP1 as the F1 W15 entries looked somewhat flighty over the course of the tour but rallied to get a spot in the top six of the classification.

 

Home favourite Oscar Piastri was 0.800 seconds adrift of session-topper Leclerc’s benchmark to sit seventh overall for McLaren, whilst Norris and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten.

 

Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu finished the day outside the top 10 in 11^th place, having hampered Verstappen earlier on the exit of turn four owing to a late radio call warning the Chinese driver to move over, whilst other home favourite Daniel Ricciardo beat sole Williams driver Logan to 12^th in his Honda-RBPT-powered RB entry.

 

Sargeant had suffered a spin after the opening ten minutes of the session whilst on a personal best effort, where he took a lot of kerb into turn eleven and unsettled the rear of his Mercedes-powered FW46 racer as the American attempted to wrestle the car over the exit run-off, ultimately with a wheel dipped in the gravel trap.

 

His Williams team-mate Alexander Albon was unable to take part in the late afternoon session due to his earlier shunt in opening practice, where the Thai-Briton driver clipped the turn seven kerb and was pitched into a side-on whack with the next barrier. Williams did not bring a spare chassis and is assessing if Albon’s FW46 entry ca be repaired for tomorrow’s Free Practice 3 session.

 

Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas was 14^th and ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly who took 15^th and Haas F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg who ended the day 16^th in the classification.

 

The other Alpine A524 entry of Esteban Ocon finished the day 17^th and in-front of Mercedes’ Hamilton who struggled to a low-18^th as Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen brought up the rear.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix 2024 Free Practice 2 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2024/races/1231/australia/practice-2.html

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Norris quickest in FP1 as Albon shunt causes red flag

 

 

 

Norris Australian GP FP1 – In the earlier FP1 session at the Australian GP, it was McLaren’s Lando Norris who lead from championship leader Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell, which was disrupted by a red flag from Williams driver Alexander Albon.

 

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso lead the field out onto the Albert Park Street Circuit with a large aerodynamic-load device fitted to the front of his AMR24 racer and it’s new front wing, but it was Mercedes’ George Russell who initially posted the first benchmark of a 1:30.214.

 

This was however, ten seconds off the pace and Russell was quickly demoted during the early phase – where both Mercedes entries complained about long brake pedals and the track surface gained grip as it cleaned up and had rubber laid on it also from the support categories of feeder series FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3, the Supercars Championship and Porsche Carrera Cup Australia.

 

P1 changed hands throughout the opening third of the 60-minute proceedings, where only Verstappen, his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ran the softs from the get-go with the rest using the mediums.

 

Perez and Leclerc switched times at the head of the time-sheets with the red side-walled C5’s, as the former ran an unbroken initial opening stint, whilst the latter joined Verstappen in making the return to the pits for an adjustment to his setup.

 

Leclerc took his first set of the softer compound back to P1 on a 1:19.110 when the session hit the 15^th-minute mark, just before Verstappen beat the Monegasque driver’s effort with a 1:18.670 as a lull in action then followed.

 

The most notable moments in the next phase were RB’s Yuki Tsunoda putting his VCARB01 entry in-between the two early leaders and Alonso losing the rear of his AMR24 racer through the high-speed turn 10 right and skidding across the exit gravel trap at high-speed before returning to the pits.

 

Just before the halfway point of the hour-long session with most of the cars still in the pits during the break in the proceedings, Norris moved into P1 with McLaren’s initial stint on the C5 red side-walled softs, which were barely used by any team during the pre-season tests at the Bahrain International Circuit, posting a 1:18.564.

 

As the field re-emerged in bips and bops through the beginning of the session’s second half, most of the pack ran softs and were able to edge ahead of the initial front-runners.

 

This included Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who jumped in-front of Verstappen – the Red Bull driver having headed out at that phase on the same set of softer rubber and not gone any faster – and Tsunoda again, at this stage using the C5 softs.

 

As the final third of proceedings began, Leclerc set a personal best on his second flying lap on his second set of softs to be a slim 0.035 second behind Norris, just before the session was halted by Albon’s shunt.

 

The Thai-Briton’s Mercedes-powered FW46 racer snapped violently right after he ran hard over the inside kerb at turn seven, which sent him rapidly into the wall and then bounced back across the track to hit the other wall and smashing both sides of the car.

 

This sent debris all over a long section of this high-speed blast and the session did not continue until nine minutes were left on the clock, once the pieces were gathered and the FW46 recovered – Albon having been quickly collected by the medical car but having confirmed himself “ok”.

 

All the cars returned to the track on the rundown to the flag, with most opting to remain on the used set of softs that they struggled to keep warm in the relatively cooler conditions in Melbourne.

 

This lead to a string of off-track excursions from several drivers – Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton at the opening corner on his first flying tour of the session, Verstappen at the turn ten exit when he was on track to oust Norris, and Perez at the penultimate corner just as he was about to register a personal best effort.

 

Verstappen had enough time to go for a final hot lap in the last minute of the session, where he moved to second place and 0.018 seconds off of Norris’ time-topping benchmark – but without setting a personal best.

 

Russell who lost his initial softs run saving a massive snap of oversteer and off at turns nine/10 just before the red flag, did likewise and moved into third place as the chequered flag was waved.

 

However, the lack of late personal bests from the rest set the following order with Leclerc taking fourth ahead of Tsunoda who was fifth, Perez in sixth, Stroll placing seventh, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz holding eighth and Hamilton, who did finally get in a soft’s time to be ninth in the order.

 

Home favourites Oscar Piastri and RB’s Daniel Ricciardo completed and just missed the top ten respectively in 10^th and 11^th place with the aforementioned Albon in 12^th despite his shunt.

 

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen took 13^th and in-front of the sole running Williams FW46 entry of Logan Sargeant who was 14^th and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon who ended FP1 in 15^th.

 

The other Haas VF-24 and Alpine A524 entries of Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly finished opening practice in 16^th and 17^th places respectively.

 

Aston Martin’s Alonso ended opening practice a low-18th as the Stake F1 pairing of Zhou and Bottas brought up the rear.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix 2024 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2024/races/1231/australia/practice-1.html

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***Breaking: Williams confirm Albon to take Sargeant’s place for remainder of Australian GP weekend***

 

 

Williams Racing announced at the end of the day that Alexander Albon will take-over the sole FW46 entry of Logan Sargeant for the remainder of the Australian Grand Prix weekend following his shunt in Free Practice 1 on Friday afternoon.

 

Towards the end of opening practice, Albon lost control of his FW46 at the turn six exit at the Albert Park Street Circuit, running over the kerbs and then spinning out into the wall on the other side of the track.

 

Although, unscathed from the incident, the Thai-Briton driver was forced to miss the afternoon Free Practice 2 session, as Williams confirmed that they have no spare chassis available this weekend – assessed the damage to Albon’s #23 entry.

 

With the damage seemed to be too significant to continue using the chassis, the team made the call for Albon – who last season scored 27 of the Grove based-outfit’s 28 points to help them reach seventh in the World Constructor’s Championship standings – to take over the sole FW46 entry of team-mate Logan Sargeant.

 

A statement from the Williams team said: “Due to the extensive damage sustained, Williams Racing are forced to withdraw the chassis for the remainder of the Grand Prix. This chassis will be returned to the team’s HQ at Grove for repair. Due to the fact that a third chassis is unavailable, the team can confirm it has taken the decision for Alex to compete for the remainder of the weekend in the chassis that Logan Sargeant drove in FP1 and FP2.” Credit to Williams for the statement.”

 

Team Principal James Vowles commented: “We are hugely disappointed that the damage sustained to the chassis has meant we need to withdraw it from the weekend. It’s unacceptable in modern day Formula 1 not to have a spare chassis, but it is a reflection of how behind we were in the winter period and an illustration of why we need to go through significant change in order to get ourselves in a better position for the future. As a result, we have had some very difficult decisions to make this afternoon. While Logan should not have to suffer from a mistake that he did not make, every race counts when the midfield is tighter than ever, so we have made the call based on our best potential to score points this weekend. This decision was not made lightly, and we cannot thank Logan enough for his graceful acceptance, demonstrating his dedication to the team; he is a true team player. This will prove a tough weekend for Williams, and this situation is not one that we will put ourselves in again.” Vowles concluded. Credit to Williams for the quote.

 

Albon added and gave praise to his team-mate stating: “I have to be totally honest and say that no driver would want to give up his seat. I would never want anything like this to happen. Logan has always been a consummate professional and a team player from day one, and this won’t be an easy one for him to take. At this point though, I cannot dwell on the situation and my only job now is to maximise our potential this weekend and work with the whole team to make sure we do the best job possible.” Albon concluded, credit to Williams for the quote.

 

Sargeant had a respectful opening day in Melbourne, finishing both practice sessions in 14^th and 13^th – being given the tough decision to give up his FW46 entry for the remainder of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix: “This is the hardest moment I can remember in my career and it’s absolutely not easy. I am however completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in any way that I can this weekend to maximise what we can do.” Sargeant concluded. Credit to Williams for the quote.

 

Sargeant will now spend the rest of the Australian Grand Prix weekend on the sidelines, as Albon jumps into his FW46 entry from Free Practice 3 onwards, with Williams still aiming for their first points of the 2024 season.

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