{"id":44741,"date":"2026-03-06T11:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=44741"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:20:16","slug":"australian-gp-2026-what-worked-and-what-didnt-for-ferrari-after-fp1-and-fp2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/formula-1\/race-weekend\/australian-gp-2026-what-worked-and-what-didnt-for-ferrari-after-fp1-and-fp2\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian GP 2026: What worked and what didn\u2019t for Ferrari after FP1 and FP2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ferrari emerged as one of the strongest teams after the opening two practice sessions of the <strong>Australian Grand Prix 2026 at Albert Park<\/strong>, showing impressive pace under the new Formula 1 regulations.<\/p>\n<h3>Good points<\/h3>\n<p>Ferrari <strong>dominated FP1 with a 1-2 finish<\/strong>, with <strong>Charles Leclerc topping the session and Lewis Hamilton finishing second<\/strong>. The team demonstrated <strong>strong straight-line speed<\/strong>, recording some of the highest top speeds across sectors.<\/p>\n<p>Both drivers appeared comfortable with the car during qualifying simulations as well as early long runs. Ferrari also looked well adapted to the <strong>new 2026 regulations<\/strong>, with the car showing balanced performance across Albert Park\u2019s mix of corners.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis Hamilton\u2019s integration into the team has also been positive so far, with the driver giving encouraging early feedback on the car\u2019s behaviour.<\/p>\n<h3>Bad points<\/h3>\n<p>In FP2, Ferrari were <strong>slightly edged on outright pace by McLaren drivers in some reports<\/strong>, although the gap remained small and Ferrari still appeared competitive.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Leclerc also mentioned <strong>minor balance instability<\/strong>, indicating that the team may still need small setup adjustments ahead of qualifying.<\/p>\n<h3>Overall outlook<\/h3>\n<p>After the first two practice sessions, Ferrari appear to be <strong>clear frontrunners<\/strong>, with strong pace and consistency putting them among the leading candidates for pole position and race pace in Melbourne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ferrari emerged as one of the strongest teams after the opening two practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix 2026\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":44718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4669],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-weekend"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44743,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741\/revisions\/44743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}