Ferrari's better performance yesterday was no coincidence. Charles Leclerc also repeated himself in the third free practice session of the Australian GP, beating the track record with a 1'16″714 achieved with the soft tires on the checkered flag lap, when the Monegasque put the red ahead of Max Verstappen by just 20 thousandths of a second.
Leclerc went 16 thousandths below last year's pole position by the Dutchman at the end of a very interesting session: it rained during the night and the track temperature had dropped at the start of the session (18 degrees in the air and 26 on the asphalt), while at at the end of the session there was an increase of five degrees so it shouldn't be surprising at all if Carlos Sainz brought the other SF-24 77 thousandths of a second behind his teammate, but the Spaniard achieved the time with the mediums much earlier than switch to red tires.
The information is interesting because Max Verstappen, second with Red Bull, complained to his technicians that the soft tire (the C5 compound, the softest of Pirelli which wasn't available last year), is perhaps too soft and the front moves too much, taking away precision in the single lap. The drivers also had to resort to two warm-up laps of the tires to bring them into the right operating window, showing how complicated it is to find their maximum exploitation.
It must be said that Ferrari is going strong with both the red and yellow tyres: the red seems to have achieved a good balance, ahead of Red Bull who had more difficulty finding the right pace, so much so that Sergio Perez is only seventh albeit with a gap of just three tenths from the top. It was also surprising that Red Bull decided to decide on the second Honda power unit only at the third GP of the season, just like Alex Albon did with Williams.
The race tire will be medium and it is no coincidence that Ferrari and Red Bull have worked hard on this compound, creating a clear difference with all the others. Mercedes seemed to be in serious difficulty with the yellows, while it found a good pace in the flying lap with the reds, after the W15 unloaded the rear wing by removing the nolder. For the first time we saw Lewis Hamilton, fourth, stay ahead of George Russell, fifth. The seven-time world champion brought the black-silver arrow just 92 thousandths from the top, confirming that the gaps in Albert Park are very small.
Fernando Alonso's performance was positive in sixth with Aston Martin, while Lance Stroll moved into ninth position, a sign that the new front wing is working well. The Silverstone team and McLaren decided to run a set of hard tires for the race, convinced that they would give greater stability to the tire in view of the longer stint, to prevent a hint of graining that has been seen so far with the softer compound .
Oscar Piastri put MacLaren in eighth place: in his home race the Australian drove the MCL38 less than three tenths behind Leclerc, while Lando Norris closes the top 10.
Yuki Tsunoda's 11th place was positive with the Racing Bull in a clear recovery phase, while Daniel Ricciardo's difficult moment continued, only 18th with the car from Faenza. There are also signs of growth from Sauber: Valtteri Bottas took advantage of the new front wing, slipping into 12th place, with Guanyu Zhou 14th.
Alexander Albon slipped in among the Hinwil cars: the Anglo Thai brought the only FW46 onto the track, after his bang yesterday. The Grove team dismounted Logan Sargeant to offer Alex the American's car, as there was shamefully no spare body. Albon didn't impress, but he must have felt the responsibility of having the only healthy car available.
Esteban Ocon had a surge of pride and brought the Alpine to 15th place, while Pierre Gasly, who just couldn't find himself with the A524, was desolately last. The Haas did not impress with Nico Hulkenberg, 16th, just ahead of his teammate, Kevin Magnussen.
#Melbourne #Free #Practice #Leclerc #begins #dream #SF24
