2018 F1 Round 1 Australian GP FP1 — Hamilton leads Mercedes one-two at season start

The new Formula 1 season began at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit on 23 March 2018. The Australian Grand Prix venue is a semi-street circuit running through park roads. Opening practice focused on reacquainting drivers with the surface, establishing baseline lap times and checking how the cars responded through fast corners and over kerbs.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton led with a 1:24.026, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas second, 0.551 seconds behind. The defending champion team occupied the top two places in the season’s opening practice session. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third, 0.745 seconds off the lead.

Ferrari drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel were fourth and fifth, 0.849 and 0.969 seconds behind respectively. The three established leading teams all featured in the top five. Fuel loads, tyre use and single-lap programmes differed in FP1, limiting any direct comparison with qualifying competitiveness.

Daniel Ricciardo was sixth in front of his home crowd. Red Bull had shown speed potential during winter testing, bringing additional attention to its home driver’s weekend. Verstappen was 0.292 seconds quicker in this session, leaving the team to continue comparing the setups and long-run performance of its two RB14s.

The midfield gaps were closely packed. Roughly one second separated Romain Grosjean in seventh from Sergio Pérez in sixteenth. Renault, Haas, McLaren, Force India and Williams all had drivers in that group. Opening practice offered an initial picture, with a settled team order still to emerge.

Several new faces and driver combinations also had to settle in for the new season. Sauber fielded Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson, while Williams introduced Sergey Sirotkin. Toro Rosso paired Pierre Gasly with Brendon Hartley, with the three teams each pursuing different priorities in the opening session.

Lap totals in the season’s first practice showed most drivers completing around 20 laps, with Bottas, Pérez and Stroll among those exceeding 25. Teams would use the running to compare brake, tyre and aerodynamic data while leaving room for adjustments as the track evolved in the afternoon.

Hamilton led the timesheet, with the two Mercedes separated by 0.551 seconds in first and second. Ferrari and Red Bull followed. The table below follows F1’s official results for all 20 drivers, listing each driver’s best lap or gap to the fastest time and completed laps. The single-session order provides an opening practice record, with the ultimate competitive ranking still to be established.