Lando Norris led a truncated and super-tight first practice at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne after a heavy Alex Albon crash red flagged the session.
Albon lost control of his Williams exiting Turn 7 and whacked the wall on the inside of Turn 8, shattering his car. The FW46 rebounded back onto the circuit before coming to rest in a heap. Albon extricated himself unhurt, but red flags were required to collect the car and clear the debris.
Less than nine minutes remained when the session resumed, but by then most drivers had already completed their runs on soft tires, leaving the order largely unchanged at the finish.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were notable exceptions, but neither was able to hook up a clean lap on fresh softs.
Verstappen bottomed out through the fast Turn 9-10 chicane and ran wide, and shortly afterwards Perez slid off the road at Turn 11 and locked up into Turn 13.
It took a second Verstappen a second run on his now worn softs — and with wh at he suspected was a damaged floor — to complete a competitive lap, putting him 0.018s behind the leading McLaren.
George Russell also improved after the suspension, finishing third and 0.033s off the pace in a difficult hour for Mercedes. The German marque was experimenting with a previous floor specification to try to cure its high-speed inconsistency, but both Russell and Hamilton struggled to stay on track. Russell’s car snapped once through the fast chicane at the end of the back straight, while Lewis Hamilton cut the grass at Turn 1 after the session resumed from red.
