What we learned from Friday practice at F1’s 2023 Australian GP

Mixed Melbourne weather and Formula 1 data systems trouble resulted in frustratingly truncated first practice running for the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, where Red Bull led the way but faced rare issues.

Max Verstappen topped the times in FP1, the only fully dry session on Friday at Albert Park, but had off-track moments and a dramatic spin late in the session, while team-mate Sergio Perez also struggled to keep his RB19 on the road.

Rain massively reducing running in FP2 meant the teams missed the usual long-run data-gathering that can help influence race predictions, but nevertheless there was plenty seen (and unseen) at Albert Park that could still impact the rest of the event.

Here’s everything we learned on Friday at the 2023 Australian Grand Prix.

The story of the day

In FP1, the pack had to contend with two invisible factors that set the story of that session. The first was strong wind blowing across the cars as they turned in for the opening corners, which put many drivers off the road or left them catching dramatic oversteer snap as they fought to stay off the kerbs these ground effects cars detest.

Yuki Tsunoda had a spin in these conditions that nearly put his AlphaTauri upside down as it caught the Turns 1/2 gravel trap flying backwards halfway through FP1. This came just after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz had plunged off the road at the same spot and Verstappen had to catch the rear of his Red Bull stepping badly out of line there. Lewis Hamilton had to rescue the tail end at this complex nearly every lap during his early running.

Then, in FP1’s final third, a problem with a server controlling the distribution of live tyre information triggered a major GPS blackout for the teams. This led to several near-misses between cars on different run plans that were going slowly and quickly at different times, so FP1 was red-flagged for nearly 10 minutes.

Following this temporary stoppage, Verstappen, who led the way in the times with a 1m18.790s set 20 minutes into FP1, had a spin which “rooted that set of tyres”, per Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. This occurred when Verstappen climbed hard onto the kerbs exiting Turn 4 and nearly speared into the track’s inside wall in a manner similar to the incident where Sebastian Vettel crashed out of last year’s race here for Aston Martin.

With a few minutes of FP1 remaining, Logan…