REPORT: Day 1 in Melbourne

Anticipation was high ahead of the first official day's running of the Formula 1 season, with more than 100,000 spectators out under in the Melbourne sun to witness a compelling first two practice sessions.

Atlassian Williams Racing enjoyed an incident-free day, though the first session was stopped on a couple of occasions. The first red flag of proceedings was brought out to clear gravel that had been scattered on to the exit of a re-modelled Turn 6, before an Oliver Bearman crash on the exit of Turn 10 brought about a longer stoppage.

This did not deter our two drivers, who set some impressive times in the opening hour – with Carlos banking a 1:17.401 to finish P2, less than two tenths of a second off top, while Alex's 1:17.713 was enough for P6.

After a couple of hours to reset, and with the track rubbering in during the intervening support races, times continued to tumble in an uninterrupted FP2.

After both quali- and race-simulation runs, there was nothing between our two drivers – literally – as they finished P11 and P12 on an identical 1:17.302.

With more than 100 laps banked by our two drivers across the opening day of running, the team will plenty of data to pore over as we turn our attention to Saturday – and the first competitive session of 2025.

"Definitely a positive Friday for us, with FP1 quite strong," Carlos explained after he jumped out of the FW47.

"FP2, we didn’t manage to find performance on the Soft tyre, so we need to look into this ahead of Qualifying tomorrow.

"If we manage to unlock some performance on the Softs, then I think we can be competitive.

"The field is extremely tight, with various teams doing some very fast laps, so I think tomorrow it will be all about executing a clean Qualifying and seeing where that takes us."

Alex was happy with the rhythm he found across the first day of track running, explaining: "We had an issue with the brakes in FP1 but were able to fix that after the session and settled into it more.

"By the end of FP2 I was in a fairly good place, but we lost performance to our rivals on the Soft tyre, so we need to understand why as it doesn’t feel right and it’s important to get on top of that ahead of Qualifying.

"On the Medium tyre, I feel we would comfortably be in Q3, but the Softs have changed a bit from last year and we are just trying to understand them. All being said, not a bad start today."