Formula 1 News: Leclerc leads Ferrari 1-2 in Australian GP Practice 1

Despite his soft tires being 14 laps old, No. 16 Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc (pictured) turned a lap of 1m20.267s to top Practice 1 for the 2026 Australian GP at Albert Park. It was the first session for the new F1 cars and so far they were over 3-seconds per lap slower than the cars a year ago.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Lewis Hamilton was 2nd in the #44 Ferrari, 0.469s behind teammate Leclerc.

Third and fourth were the Red Bull Fords of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, 0.522s and 0.820s behind Leclerc respectively.

Rookie Arvind Lindblad was an impressive 5th for the Racing Bulls-Ford, 1.046s behind Leclerc. Impressive for the rookie’s first official F1 session.

Fernando Alonso never even made it out on the track in the #14 Aston Martin Honda and his teammate Lance Stroll only turned 3 slow laps as expected.

Defending champion Lando Norris had a gearbox issue and sat out almost the entire session.

The session began with issues for Piastri and Lindblad, but those were both solved fairly quickly.

Early advantage to Ferrari then, with Red Bull pushing them close and rookie Lindblad impressing too.

2026 Australian GP Practice 1 Results