McLaren's Piastri fastest on first day of F1 season

McLaren's Piastri fastest on first day of F1 season By Andrew Benson F1 Correspondent in Melbourne Published 6 March 2026, 02:45 GMT 80 Comments Updated 6 minutes ago McLaren's Oscar Piastri finished the first day of running of the new Formula 1 season in first place after Friday practice at the Australian Grand Prix. The Australian was 0.214 seconds quicker than Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, whose team-mate George Russell was third fastest ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. Red Bull's Max Verstappen was sixth fastest ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris and the 18-year-old British rookie Arvid Lindblad, who had an impressive first day in F1 for Racing Bulls. Aston Martin, the story of the weekend so far as a result of major problems with their Honda engine, had a better session after only managing three laps in first practice. Fernando Alonso was able to do 17 laps after missing the entire first session because of vibration problems with his engine but was 4.933 seconds off the pace. Alonso in 'hard mental place', says Newey Published 1 hour ago His team principal Adrian Newey has laid bare Honda's problems in two extraordinary news conferences on consecutive days, on Friday explaining how the situation was affecting Alonso, and how their engine partner has found itself struggling so much. Completing the top 10 was the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar and Haas' Esteban Ocon, whose British team-mate Oliver Bearman was 11th. The headline lap times may well not be a true reflection of outright pace as the top teams all did their laps at different times of the session - Mercedes running relatively early and Piastri late, when the track would have been faster. On the race-simulation runs later in the session, Mercedes appeared to have a significant advantage over Ferrari, the only other top team to run on the same hard tyre. However, Mercedes' programme allowed them to do many more laps. Red Bull and McLaren ran on the medium and soft tyres on their race runs....