Australian Grand Prix media day kicked off the first official activity of the 2025 Formula 1 season and has thrown up some early lessons from Melbourne already.
While we wait for the all-important track sessions on Friday to fill in the crucial blanks, hearing from all 20 drivers and several team bosses - plus mingling in the F1 paddock properly once again - has unearthed plenty of nuggets.
Here are the main things we learned on Thursday at Albert Park.
McLaren rivals 'short-sighted'
McLaren is favourite for the Australian Grand Prix weekend in everyone's eyes. The team accepts that, and is carrying those lofty expectations lightly, but Lando Norris argues some have gone too far in declaring the size of its advantage.
"It was really just my one race run I did that made everyone believe this," says Norris. "It was a good race run, but it was also in the most perfect conditions. So I'm quite surprised so many people are so short-sighted, especially people you wouldn't expect to be making so many conclusions before we even started the season."
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Norris didn't specify who he meant by those people, but chances are it was rivals such as Max Verstappen and Mercedes, who predicted a big advantage for McLaren. Or perhaps Ferrari? "You'd be surprised at how quick they're going to be this weekend," says Norris.
According to world championship favourite, "everyone wants to play the game of looking like the underdog". Nobody at McLaren is trying to play the underdog, but Norris's summary that "we expect to be up there fighting, but I definitely don't think by the margin that everyone said" shows McLaren is taking nothing for granted.
Red Bull's key floor test
Max Verstappen talked down Red Bull's victory chances last week, but promises Red Bull has made changes to the car to "make it more driveable".
What's unclear is how much it will improve the car, as he says "it's a bit difficult to say if things have been fully fixed or not".
One key decision The Race understands has been made is that the new floor, which was trialled on the final day of testing with disappointing results, is going to be used.
Helmut Marko said in an interview with Germany's Auto Motor und Sport that this floor didn't work well, meaning the blend of the old spec with the new front wing featuring a gap between the nose and the bottom element worked best.
That Red Bull is returning to the new floor suggests confidence is at least relatively high that it can be made to work.
But it means keeping a close eye on Red Bull during Friday practice - for it would be a surprise if it didn't have the old spec of floor available if needed - is essential.
Where Ferrari has most room to improve
Ferrari slightly underwhelmed in testing, where the car was not always easy to drive and reliability problems hit Lewis Hamilton on the final day. So what chance it starts the year on the front foot?
Well, there's a clear area it has room to improve in. Charles Leclerc said on Thursday that there is potential to unlock in the car because "we haven't done anything to try and cure the balance issues we've had".
Reading between the lines, Ferrari spent testing working through various set-up directions to explore the car's performance window but never settled on one to start refining. That goes for each team to some degree but Leclerc spoke as though Ferrari feels there is some low-hanging fruit.
"This is where we thought we could learn the most and improve the most [in testing]," Leclerc said.
"And these are also things that you cannot really do during a race weekend, because it changes so much the feeling with the car that you cannot afford to do that in FP1 or FP2.
"We had to get that out of the way, and we did during testing."
The remaining question is where that will leave Ferrari once everybody has optimised (or tried to optimise) their cars this weekend, and if a perfect SF-25 will only jump it ahead of Mercedes and Red Bull or put it on a par with McLaren.
What's going on with out-of-contract Russell
George Russell starts the 2025 season in Australia as the lead out-of-contract driver on the grid.
This is the final year of Russell's current Mercedes deal. And Russell's place at the team has becoming a point of interest since Toto Wolff openly flirted with signing Max Verstappen last year, then promoted Kimi Antonelli to a race seat to fill the vacancy left by Hamilton.
Russell was once the next big thing at Mercedes. Now he's its present leader, and could still be its future too - but the hype around Antonelli and Wolff's interest in Verstappen have made more than a few wonder what would happen in the next round of negotiations.
They've tentatively started. Wolff says some talks have been held already and sounded very keen to progress them further, "I guess before the summer". He also said in an answer slightly dancing around whether he would go back in for Verstappen that he would make sure Russell has what he needs in contract talks "pretty soon".
There is a slight disconnect between that and what Russell said, though. His focus is on Mercedes' on-track performance in the short-term and said he feels "no pressure" on his side to do a deal.
"If you're performing people will want you and it is not like I'm rushing to sign a contract if the team don't want to sign me," he said.
That's not an indication Russell feels Mercedes doesn't want him. But he is in a strong position as long as Antonelli isn't such a phenomenon that Russell gets unexpectedly blown away.
Russell knows the likelihood is he will be able to dictate terms, and timing, and shop around if he wants to and there is a bit of movement elsewhere.
Alpine's 'insane improvement'
One year ago, the mood at Alpine heading into the opening race of the season was morose, but things are very different in 2025. As Pierre Gasly says, "compared to 12 months ago, it's insane how much improvement we've done".
The Alpine showed its mettle in testing, where it appeared to have the pace to battle for midfield supremacy. Crucially, the car gave its drivers, particularly Gasly, confidence with some of the limitations that held Alpine back even when it performed well late last year now eliminated.
"The car reacted pretty well to my inputs, reacted well to set-up changes, which is always a good sign," says Gasly. "Generally I ended up in a pretty happy place for that track.
"It’s a car that definitely suits me a lot more."
Why Williams is faster than it expected
The midfield expectation is that Alpine will be at the head of the group, even though Williams looked very good in testing.
That's not a disappointment for Williams though, which is buoyed by more than headline times in Bahrain. The car is faster than it expected, Alex Albon revealed on Thursday, which is twinning very nicely with how much more prepared the team feels this season compared to 12 months ago because there are no compromises on the car this time.
Albon says that's more the cause for optimism than the "pure performance" of the year.
"In the simulator the laptimes were quicker but one thing you don't always factor in is the driveability around the car, the predictability of the car," he said.
"Last year the car could catch us out quite often.
"It's not just pure laptime sometimes. It comes in different ways. That's kind of where that growing confidence in the car is coming from."
And new team-mate Carlos Sainz thinks what is so "positive" about Williams is that it is now nailing "simple things that, maybe in the past, Williams wasn't getting spot on" - such as good reliability, and hitting the weight limit.
How 'Mr Ferrari' is handling Hamilton attention
Leclerc has been out of the spotlight this pre-season, and looks totally at ease with that fact.
He was described by Hamilton as "very, very, very much Mr Ferrari" on Thursday in Melbourne, because of his long relationship with the team. But since Hamilton's arrival, the seven-time world champion has dominated headlines and taken almost all the attention.
Leclerc was quizzed about this a lot in Melbourne and brushed it off with ease.
"Lewis is coming in the team as a legend of the sport and so there's a lot more attention on him than there's for me," he said.
"But I'm completely fine with it. I completely understand that, and it's normal."
That confidence probably comes from two things: Ferrari still loves Leclerc, it's just welcoming Hamilton with open arms, and Leclerc knows what really matters is the on-track performance.
However, he's not even looking for reasons to assure him he won't be displaced.
"I'm not scared of that," he said. "I don't think about it that like. These are people that I know since 2015, so I was a kid back then. They've seen me grow up. So it's not like it's going to change from one day to the other.
"I'm not worried about how people perceive me within the team. This is a team that I know very, very well, and all these people are more than just work colleagues.
"That's probably why I don't worry."
Newey won't save 2025 Aston Martin
Adrian Newey started work at Aston Martin after testing, but he's so far devoted all of his 10 days there to work on the 2026 car. And that's not changing this weekend.
Newey won't participate in the various technical meetings relating to work on the 2025 car in Melbourne, understandably not joining the remote sessions from the UK that will take place. Not only would getting involved in something going on the other side of the world in a timezone 11 hours ahead make little sense for him, it will also detract from his focal point.
Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell says Newey has already had an impact on "a couple of areas" of the 2026 car in terms of direction. There will be time in the future for him perhaps to breathe a little magic on the current car, but in his early weeks at Aston Martin the more input on next year's machine the better.
