1 F2018 Australian Grand Prix: Free Practice Results

The World Cup kicks off F1 2018 with his first date, the Australian GP. Free practice 1 and 2 that open this weekend's event were held there today and we have already been able to see a little of what tomorrow's grid may be in qualifying, where all the teams will be ordered more or less as they really are. is it so. Although in practice 2 we have already seen a preview of this, but some may still save something and some positions will change tomorrow. In any case, it is the first round and we will have to wait two or three races for the grid to really get organized. I think it would be a mistake to judge from the first race alone, although we can certainly already say that Mercedes are in the lead and it could be another year of dominance for them.

In the first two sessions we have seen some lights and shadows. McLaren and Red Bull have "blurred" a little, since the performance of these two teams that were speculated to be great rivals between them, or at least that they were very close to the top ones, has not been like that. Even from Mercedes it was believed that Red Bull could be his biggest rival ahead of Ferrari (although watch out for Max's time in Free Practice 2...we will have to see in what conditions he did it, but he promises). But I insist, it is still early to judge and we are only in the first weekend of a long season. I also have to say in favor of the Renault-powered teams that they will be conservative in the first rounds due to the reliability of the diamond engines. The French don't have it all together when it comes to reliability and may take some power off in favor of gaining mileage.

Those who have given a giant step, and it is obvious because they are practically a copy of last year's Ferrari, they are those of Haas. The team has a good Ferrari engine and a chassis that looks like a copy of the A-team. They seem to be after the Mercedes and Ferrari, which is unusual. I have a theory, though I don't know if it's true. And it is that those from Maranello are playing with their synergy with Haas to progress faster. Let me explain, perhaps part of the budget of both teams and the hours of the wind tunnel (from Dallara, which supposedly designs the Haas chassis) are destined to improve the Ferrari chassis, since Haas inherits it the following year and that also benefits them. That would also explain the terrible progression and improvements that the American team introduces during the season... That's why they start very strong and gradually deflate throughout the season. And the 2018 Haas is practically a 2017 Ferrari with a halo…

out of speculation, Sauber (and also Williams) let me down a bit, that seemed to have an innovative chassis and be somewhat beefed up in terms of having a Ferrari "black leg" power unit this year from their association with Alfa Romeo, rather than settling for crumbs from previous years like last year. But despite that they are last and far, about two seconds separate them with their heads and that is enough. It is true that perhaps they will not have as many difficulties as in 2017, but I expected more from them. Also the extreme reliability that the Honda engine apparently showed in preseason and the good times of Toro Rosso have dissolved today, I hope that the Japanese do not have another season as bad as the previous three...

Free practice results 1

Free practice results 2

I hope that tomorrow Sainz and Alonso have a good classification, today the Spaniard had problems with his exhausts in the first free practice session, and that has made them lose time that they later recovered in free practice 2. In preseason they had many reliability problems and they said they had solved them in the factory, so I hope that this is just a small problem that can be corrected and that tomorrow they finish qualifying in the Top10 and on Sunday the race in the points. As for Carlos, the car seems a bit slower than the MCL33, so we'll see if they get into Q3 or stay at the gates.