The first real day of the 2025 Formula 1 season has already thrown up some surprises compared to testing, and made qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix an even more exciting prospect.
Ferrari set the pace ahead of McLaren on day one in Melbourne but an unusual second practice sessions meant some teams were left really scratching their heads.
Here's what we learned from a fascinating Friday at Albert Park.
Ferrari fastest but picture murky
For all the anticipation we had about reviewing the best qualifying simulations in second practice, with everyone on softs and low fuel, it ended with a strange picture.
Several drivers had difficulty improving after switching from the mediums to the soft, which meant a lot of teams were out of position in the final ranking.
The Mercedes and Red Bull drivers failed to do a particularly fast lap between them, leaving Ferrari, McLaren and surprisingly Racing Bulls as the fastest three teams.
Charles Leclerc was quickest on both the mediums and the softs, so this does look like a genuinely encouraging day for Ferrari, murky as the picture may be.
That might prove Lando Norris right after the McLaren driver claimed on Thursday he expected Ferrari to make a leap forward based on how much fuel he thought it was running with in testing.
Both McLarens lapped just 0.017s apart in FP2, which suggests that was about what the car was capable of. The question is how much faster it will go in qualifying for real, when everyone's maxing out everything, and the conditions change slightly again.
And of course, the long run data suggests McLaren still has a decisive edge in that crucial area.
Mercedes was not in the mix at all. George Russell's scruffy session included dropping a wheel on the grass entering Turn 4 and narrowly avoiding nosing into the wall, and a lock up into the penultimate corner that looked reminiscent of the main issue that both drivers had to deal with in testing.
His young team-mate Kimi Antonelli looked a little on the edge at times, and ended his first full day of practice four tenths slower than Russell.
"We've got some work to do on improving our single-lap performance on the soft compound ahead of qualifying," said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
"We've already got some areas of focus though and are confident we can take steps to do that overnight."
Red flags for Red Bull
Max Verstappen came to Australia not expecting to fight for victory and, on the evidence of Friday, that pessimism was well justified.
The car looked a handful all day, but Verstappen was particularly unimpressed after FP2. He aborted his first qualifying simulation pretty quickly after sliding his way through the first three corners.
Looking for more paddock insight ahead of the F1 season opener? There's never been a better time to be part of The Race Members' Club on Patreon - join now to get 90% off your first month
And though he jumped to seventh at the very end of the qualifying simulations to salvage a more respectable finish for the team, Red Bull clearly has work to do.
"The grip wasn't great and we were struggling on all four tyres, particularly in sector one and in the final sector," said Verstappen.
"It feels like we are not up there at the moment but we will work to find more pace.
"There are no major balance issues, so I think this makes things a bit harder to fix."
New team-mate Liam Lawson had a particularly untidy day.
He was well off Verstappen on softs in FP2, and caught the ire of Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc for holding them up at different points. But it didn't get any better pace-wise.
He described himself as "comfortable, just too slow" - he was only 17th fastest - and with more work to do than expected.
Edd Straw's trackside snapshot
Judging on watching Friday's running trackside, FP1 at Turn 6 and FP2 at Turn 13, you would bank on Norris and McLaren being the combination to beat. The car has a strong front end, rotates well and allows the drivers to get onto the power well. In short, it does everything you want a car to do, with the only moment where anything went remotely wrong when Norris took a small bit of the gravel exiting the Turn 12 right-hander.
At its best, the Ferrari is every bit as good in the hands of Leclerc - except when it isn't. There was the odd hint of the car having moments of instability when on the limit, the odd double bite on turn-in, for example, but it looked more convincing than in Bahrain. Verstappen looked better in the faster Turn 6/7 combination than in the slow Turn 13, which suggests Red Bull still has some work to do on balance, with Mercedes less impressive than in Bahrain.
The biggest improver since testing was Sauber. While still far from perfect, it now looks to be giving the drivers what they need to be somewhere in the midfield spread. That's a worry for Aston Martin, which continues to have grip troubles mid-corner. The Racing Bulls car also looks better-balanced and more together.
The first direct Hamilton-Leclerc comparison
While Leclerc set the pace, Lewis Hamilton was four tenths off his new team-mate - a result he didn't seem too surprised by.
Hamilton admitted he was "missing a bit of pace, but that's expected", and said there is still balance work to do overnight.
The qualifying simulations offered the first comparison between Hamilton and Leclerc, and it's obvious that Leclerc has an early advantage.
The actual gap between them was exaggerated by a couple of big losses from Hamilton needing greater confidence lifts through the fast Turns 6 and Turn 12.
Interestingly, there was a clear trend across the lap of Leclerc making marginal gains in several corners with a distinctive style compared to Hamilton.
This wasn't quite the same as last year when Hamilton would bleed time to George Russell at key moments. This was a consistent loss, maybe half a tenth through most of the corners, as Hamilton braked a little later, a little harder and for a little longer, while Leclerc lifted and braked earlier but kept more throttle applied and had a higher minimum speed.
It may be that the Ferraris have become tuned to this unique and effective Leclerc style, and that will ultimately make the difference when chasing the final tenth or two.
But before then, there is a chunk of laptime to be gained once Hamilton's more comfortable, confident and committed.
The midfield surprise
Behind the top two teams, the order on Friday was so surprising that it would make for a fascinating grid if replicated in qualifying!
Racing Bulls wasn't just best of the rest, it had both cars in the top six and was faster than its bigger brother Red Bull and Mercedes.
The likelihood is that on one-lap pace, the midfield order has been jumbled by the odd soft tyre performance, or lack of it.
It would still be a surprise if Racing Bulls remains in this position come qualifying but it does look strong - which matches the step it seemed to make on the final day of testing.
The biggest midfield disappointments on Friday were Williams and Alpine, which had looked so good in testing and, in Williams's case, been flying up until the point of the soft tyre runs in FP2.
In fact, Williams had been so fast in opening practice, with Sainz second-fastest and Alex Albon in sixth, that team boss James Vowles was at pains to insist practice was not a realistic reference for the pecking order.
He'll now hope that is the case for a different reason, as Williams was only on the fringes of the top 10 on the softs and more concerningly fell behind other midfield teams in the process.
But it should be noted that Williams did look the strongest of the midfield cars on high fuel and the best of them on track for most of the day with the exception of the strange qualifying simulations.
By contrast, Alpine has been consistently muted here so far.
There was an expectation that Alpine looked in the best shape of all in the midfield after testing but that's not translated into strong performance in Melbourne - on Friday at least.
Pierre Gasly felt he had a brake issue in FP2 and both cars were disappointingly off the pace, with Alpine only faster than Haas.
The cars had a lack of grip, but were rapid in sector two, indicating it might just be a case of running with a bit more wing on Saturday.
This Sauber looks much better
The 'real' Sauber has turned up and it's already looking a lot more respectable.
OK, this is really just an evolution of what we saw in testing, but it's the car the team has had planned for the first race for a while now.
Sauber changed its development plan some time ago to bring forward some upgrades that would have otherwise arrived early in the season.
The new front wing and sidepods were never going to be ready for testing as a result, but they are here in Melbourne. There are also some changes under the skin that we can't see.
After chronic balance issues in Bahrain, where the car was too stiff even though it was at least running softer by day three, Sauber looked like it might be a clear last - even if it wasn't totally cut adrift.
It already looks better after Friday practice in Australia, with Nico Hulkenberg a very surprising presence in the top 10 - which he put down to changing the set-up "quite a bit" after FP1.
"The resulting feedback turned out to be positive," he said. "It didn't feel that easy, though the laptimes on low fuel look OK."
Haas faces a big recovery job
Ollie Bearman didn't get any low fuel running in testing and when he finally did in Melbourne, it went very badly, very quickly.
Bearman put the car in the wall, heavily, in first practice on a qualifying simulation.
He was a bit too wide turning into the right-hand part of the high speed Esses in the middle of the lap, lost the rear and ran wide.
A sizeable shunt for Ollie Bearman in FP1 😢
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 14, 2025
He thankfully walked away from the incident unharmed#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/U4wEvf4HyB
That probably showed a lack of familiarity with the car combined with some inexperience, and Haas wasn't able to get his car repaired in time to do even an installation lap in FP2.
If that wasn't bad enough, the even bigger issue at the moment is that Haas, having neglected low-fuel running in testing, is well off the pace.
It was slowest of all the teams by more than six tenths and the only team that was over a second off the pace.
Team boss Ayao Komatsu's view was that doing quali sims in Bahrain wouldn't change anything if it found out the car was too slow. But it might have given the drivers a better feeling, and the team some set-up direction.
Haas should claw back its deficit with some optimisation overnight, but it's coming from the worst possible place on Friday. And the team sounded a little confused at the end of the day.
Ocon said it was surprising to be so far off, and Komatsu admitted "we couldn’t completely get to the bottom of why we were uncompetitive".
