Max Verstappen led the opening practice session for Formula 1’s 2023 Australian Grand Prix, which was twice interrupted by red flags – including fixing a bizarre bug with the GPS systems used to track cars.
Red Bull’s Verstappen set the fastest lap of 1m18.790s to end the session ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who jumped up late after initially struggling with the handling of his W14. Hamilton had lost his teammate George Russell on the harder tires in the early reconnaissance laps.
Sergio Perez finished third in the second Red Bull ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, although the former’s best time was set in the middle when he went off the track on his run on soft tyres.
Then came Ferrari pairing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who momentarily went off the track mid-session after the rear of their SF-23 jerked to the right as it swerved through the Turn 1-2 complex.
Several riders had similar issues, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda escaping the most dramatically when he spun and his AT04 bounced into the air after hitting the gravel trap in the drain behind the left/right sequence.
Strong winds were blowing across the Albert Park circuit at this point throughout FP1, which likely contributed to the many issues the drivers were having when they started pressing on the soft tires in early qualifying sim runs.
Lando Norris was seventh for McLaren ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Russell and Lance Stroll, who completed the top 10 in the second Aston. Stroll was the only other leading motorist to set his personal best on the Mediums.
Despite being in the lead, Verstappen’s session was not smooth, as he regularly missed the apex of Turn 1 and had to catch a big oversteer error at some point in the quickly following Turn 2.
In the closing stages he climbed too far over the exit curbs of Turn 4 while pushing on well-used softs and spun sideways – the same spot where Sebastian Vettel crashed his Aston here in the 2022 race last year, after he had suffered a similar accident error.
Just after half-time the session was interrupted when the GPS system used by the F1 organisation, FIA and teams failed. Several drivers had near misses because their squads could not tell them about other cars that were approaching at wide speed differences.
This resulted in a nine-minute red flag, followed by a second stoppage in the closing minutes when Logan Sargeant pulled his Williams out of Turn 11 over a suspected electrical problem.
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