Formula 1 opens its season at the Australian GP with plenty of questions marks

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — As crowds filtered into Melbourne's Albert Park on Friday for Formula 1’s first day of practice at its 2026 season opener, there were questions marks. Plenty of them.

The first, and most pressing, at the milestone 40th Australian Grand Prix was the potential postponement or cancellation of upcoming F1 races in the Middle East on April 12 and 19 in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

That's due to the war involving the United States, Israel and Iran which has made travel difficult due to closed air spaces and dangerous to be in the region. F1’s governing body, the FIA, has already postponed the Qatar curtain raiser for top sportscar category, the World Endurance Championship, that was slated to be held on March 26-28.

And while it, and Formula One Management, the sport’s commercial rights holder, are monitoring the situation in real time — with a focus on the safety and well-being of all concerned — an announcement is expected soon.

In the F1 paddock, though, where performance is king, the biggest question mark is the sport’s reshuffled pecking order as a result of new technical regulations — including the position of new American startup squad, General Motors-sponsored Cadillac.

F1 heads into a new era this year, with unprecedented changes across the chassis (car) and power unit, which now feature an almost 50:50 output split between the turbo 1.6-liter V6 engine and electrical energy harvested from the brakes, one that requires a new, often counterintuitive driving style from the drivers.

Leclerc led pre-season testing

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped the final pre-season test in Bahrain, just over eight tenths of a second clear of Mercedes young gun Kimi Antonelli. But it’s the Italian’s Silver Arrows team who go into the meeting as favorites, based on an alleged engine advantage that they’ve yet to run at full tilt.

Should Mercedes set the track alight, with searing, dominant pace, it’s expected that it will be George Russell, though, and not Antonelli, who would lead the charge. The British driver has five career wins and was been very relaxed in the lead-up to Friday’s two practice sessions.

“The car is performing as we expected. What was very important is seeing the correlation (between wind tunnel and track) is good, there’s no major scares on the car,” Russell said. “I put it on the ground and both Kimi and I were happy with how it was handling."

Ferrari, though, is expected to be quick — and in contention for its first win on Aussie soil since 2022, thanks to its nimble car and smaller turbo that requires less spooling-up to deliver performance and lighting starts.

“We got great mileage done in winter testing,” said the Scuderia’s rejuvenated seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. “An amazing amount of work has been done from the team back at the factory, but also delivering on those tests, and we’ve learned a lot from last year."

Hopes for hometown boy Piastri

A huge spotlight in Australia, though, is understandably focused on local hero, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Piastri is no doubt in the hunt for redemption after the title last year slipped through his fingers and went to teammate Lando Norris.

A bitter pill to swallow, given the Australian led the series standings for 189 days from Saudi Arabia to Mexico, but lost out after a series of mistakes, his toughest round at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. And then difficult run through the Americas, where he struggled to manage tires on low-grip tracks.

Piastri believes he and Norris will start behind the front-runners, but the pressure remains from local media, who want to see him become the first Australian to win his home race.

“If I had a dollar for every time I got asked that, I’d be a few dollars richer!” Piastri joked. “Every driver wants to win their home race and that’s no different for me."

The fourth team expected to be in the mix is Red Bull.

But four-time world champion Max Verstappen, with his RB22 delivering impressive energy management, remains in the dark about where he will work out in the mix.

“I think we want to be a little bit faster and naturally everyone always wants to be faster,” Verstappen said. “But from the things that I think we learned in Bahrain, at least we were not the quickest. But yeah, I have no idea, we’ll just see where we are here to start with.”

Aston Martin has no illusions of even finishing the race on Sunday. Adrian Newey, the F1 car design great who’s heading into his first race as Aston Martin’s team principal, said Thursday the team’s Honda power unit causes vibrations which could damage the hands of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

Just another question mark for the season-opening race.

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