Scott Gulbransen
Friday at Albert Park, home of this week’s Australian Grand Prix, gave us the first real look at what F1 2026 actually is. Not what it looked like in Bahrain on a test track in February heat, but under race weekend pressure, at a street circuit with drivers pushing and teams making real decisions. Two practice sessions later, here’s what we know.
Ferrari Continues to Impress
Ferrari came out swinging. Charles Leclerc topped FP1, his red car fast and clean around a track that tends to reward precision over raw power. Lewis Hamilton slotted in right behind him in second. That’s the Ferrari 1-2 the Scuderia faithful have been dreaming about for three years.
Hamilton looked like a man reborn —comfortable, aggressive, clearly at home in the SF-26 in a way that was hard to fully picture before Melbourne. Their early dominance wasn’t just a flash, either. When FP2 rolled around, both Ferraris were still in the mix with Hamilton fifth, Leclerc sixth. The pace is real.
Mercedes and George Russell Look Good Despite Setbacks
Mercedes had a messier day but didn’t panic. Their FP1 was relatively quiet, the Silver Arrows lurking rather than leading. Then FP2 happened. Kimi Antonelli — yes, the 19-year-old sophomore driver — became the first driver to crack the 1:19s barrier and finished second overall. George Russell wound up third. The caveat? Russell locked up and went through the gravel at Turn 3, and there are two steward investigations hanging over him after some pit lane contact with Arvid Lindblad of Racing Bulls. Clean weekend, this is not. But the pace is absolutely there.
Max Verstappen is, well, Max Verstappen
Then there’s Verstappen. He stalled the car in the pit lane before FP2 even got started. He lost a chunk of session time. Then, with 10 minutes left, he clipped the wall at Turn 10 at high speed, went through the gravel, and damaged his floor. He still finished sixth. That’s Max. The car has real question marks around reliability, as Honda reportedly has just two functioning batteries left, and he’s still finding a way to be in the conversation. Don’t write him off because the RB-22 is complicated right now. Complicated has never stopped him before.
Saturday’s final practice and qualifying will tell us a lot more. But Friday’s headline is hard to argue with: Ferrari looks like a genuine threat, Mercedes looks like the team to beat when it gets things together, and Verstappen remains exactly the kind of problem that doesn’t go away just because you want it to.
