10 things we've learned from Melbourne so far

Mercedes headed into the first day of the 2018 Formula 1 season looking in good shape after a strong showing in pre-season, but today's two free practice sessions had the potential to change everything.

Inevitably, the identity of the pacesetter - Lewis Hamilton - suggests things went as expected but there were some genuine surprises and intriguing patterns on the first day of running.

On top of that, we also learned a little more about which team is best placed to mount a challenge to F1's dominant force of the V6 turbo hybrid era, and had the chance to see how some major upgrade packages impacted the competitive order.

Autosport's team of journalists have scoured the paddock, studied the times and watched trackside to interpret what we saw during the three hours of running into a picture of how things are shaping up ahead of qualifying.

Hamilton and Mercedes look supreme

Edd Straw

@EddStrawF1

This isn't just about how fast the Mercedes is after Lewis Hamilton set the pace during Friday practice - handy as his 0.127 seconds advantage over Max Verstappen was - it's about something less tangible.

Watching the reigning world champion and the Mercedes W09 on track on Friday was to witness man and machine in near-perfect harmony. It's hardly a bold claim to say Hamilton looked fast, or that the Mercedes is a good car, but on track there was no sign of the 'diva' tendencies that made its predecessor difficult at this stage of last season.

Hamilton has always been a master of slower corner entry, and the Mercedes lets him rotate the rear exactly as he wants. At the Turn 9/10 right-left this morning, a corner that requires dropping down to third gear for the entry, he turned in decisively, got on the power then launched through the flick. Valtteri Bottas, by contrast, simply couldn't do the same thing - often finding the rear continuing to slid when he didn't want it to.

That's what the rest are up against: not just a driver at the peak of his powers, or a team with a car that could prove to be the class of the field, but a combination of the two. Each makes the other look that bit better.

Red Bull is ahead of Ferrari

By Edd Straw

Testing was inconclusive, as whether Red Bull or Ferrari was the closest challenger to Mercedes depended on which runs you analysed and what adjustments you made. Overall, the feeling was that Red Bull was the most serious threat to Mercedes, and so it proved on Friday in Australia.

That's not to say the gap was huge, with the best Ferrari time within three tenths off the pace, but on the evidence of Friday Lewis Hamilton's assertion after pre-season testing that Red Bull "could be a real challenge" seems the most accurate one.

Ferrari didn't quite have the long-run pace either, although Sebastian Vettel's run on softs was slightly better than Bottas's on the same tyre. Whichever way you look at it, Ferrari has some work to do overnight.

With the team continuing to work on aero experiments, such as back-to-backing a 2017 front wing with its new one, there are signs Ferrari doesn't entirely understand its new high-rake, longer wheelbase car. While the gap to the front isn't big, based on practice evidence it's enough to make Ferrari third best.

Haas finds the right kind of no man's land

Scott Mitchell

@ScottAutosport

Haas was so quick in Friday practice it drew scorn from Fernando Alonso. Asked if he was surprised by Romain Grosjean being sixth-quickest, Alonso said: "No, not really. They obviously have a Ferrari replica of last year and Ferrari were winning here [in 2017]."

True enough, Haas has enjoyed a technical partnership with Ferrari since it entered F1 after rules regarding which components teams must design themselves were relaxed. But take nothing away from the performance of the VF-18 in Grosjean's hands in Melbourne, it's seriously impressive to see it in no man's land to the frontrunners when the midfield battle is as close as it's threatening to be (see below) this season.

"We need to see if it's real, the no man's land, and what has happened to the other teams," said Grosjean. "If you can end up in that position it would be amazing, but we're fighting big teams - McLaren, Renault, Force India - and they have got a lot of experience and resources as well."

Haas's day wasn't perfect. Grosjean breaking a bargeboard hitting a kerb - the team suffered some aerodynamic parts failing during testing too - wasn't a great sign, while Kevin Magnussen endured some "little crazy problems" including the interior of his crash helmet falling out.

A wet Saturday might derail Haas slightly, but in dry conditions it's best-of-the-rest in Australia.

The midfield has closed on the big three...

Edd Staw

Last season, the gap between the big three teams and the rest was cavernous, but the evidence of Friday in Melbourne was that the gap has closed.

Based on the average gap last season, the front of the midfield would have been about 1.8s adrift. But on Friday, the gap was seven-tenths of a second to Haas, and just under 1.3s to the rest of the midfield pack headed by McLaren. Overall, the whole competitive spread of the field has been reduced.

There are caveats to add to this, with the pacesetters potentially able to unlock greater pace come the serious stuff on Saturday, so it's likely these gaps could expand. But even so, it raises hopes that in the second year of these aerodynamic regulations the have-nots and have-a-bits are closing on the well-bankrolled haves.

This raises hopes of the midfield cars becoming more relevant in the lead battle, not in terms of beating the big three but at least being close enough to cause more strategic conundrums. After all, the closer the spread, the smaller the size of the variables needed to have a big impact on the race.

But first, let's see if the pattern holds for qualifying when Mercedes and Red Bull stretch their legs.

...and is ridiculously competitive

Scott Mitchell

There was a point in the final pre-season test at Barcelona where the 10 teams were closer than at any point in the V6 turbo-hybrid era. Haas's remarkable pace in Australia looks to have lifted it out of the midfield battle at the moment: but it's left behind an incredibly fierce fight.

McLaren, Renault, Force India, Williams and Toro Rosso were separated by barely anything on Friday, as less than a second covered Fernando Alonso in eighth to Sergey Sirotkin in 18th.

The picture is cloudy because McLaren lost mileage, Force India is working on its major upgrade and had a "messy" day and Williams is still yet to really give a firm indicator of whether it's in the mix or struggling to hang on.

Qualifying is going to be immensely important, and if it rains as predicted then a jumbled order could give a team - maybe even Toro Rosso on its debut with Honda - the chance to score big, as the pace difference between each outfit does not look huge in the dry.

There is optimism about overtaking

Andrew van Leeuwen

@avlmelbourne

Albert Park has a bad reputation when it comes to encouraging good racing - and, unfortunately, it's a well-deserved one.

To help remedy the track's passing woes, the FIA has opted to install a third DRS zone for the very first time for this year's race. Beginning on the exit of the fast Turn 11/12 complex, the third zone has been added to serve two purposes. The first is to help make the reasonably slow Turn 13 right-hander a genuine overtaking spot, something that the high-speed exit of 12 has largely prevented in the past. Even more importantly it should help keep cars close together through the final sector, to help the two DRS zones in the first part of the lap be more effective.

Will it work? There is genuine optimism from the drivers that it just might.

"Turn 12 and 13, behind another car, you lose a lot of lap time just from not being able to get clear air into your front wing," said Renault driver Carlos Sainz. "You just have to follow the line of the car in front and you lose a lot of laptime. So, DRS to recover that lap time after Turn 12 is going to help."

Haas's Kevin Magnussen added: "It's still not going to be easy to pass, but it's going to help a lot - it's going to improve the race a lot.

"Some tracks they don't need to put another zone, maybe they could just extend the zone. I think it's good what they've done here."

Off-track fireworks have kicked off already

Adam Cooper

@coopergrandprix

It didn't take long for inter-team tensions to have an impact on the 2018 F1 season - one day to be precise - as the controversy over Ferrari's hiring of FIA man Laurent Mekies took on another dimension in Friday's team boss press conference.

Not surprisingly, Red Bull chief Christian Horner and Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene expressed opposing views on the situation. Horner insisted that in the last Strategy Group meeting the teams had come to a gentlemen's agreement on a 12-month gardening leave for former FIA and F1 employees. Arrivabene, meanwhile, said that while the subject was discussed there was no agreement, pending feedback on labour law and contracts from the FIA legal department.

That, Arrivabene stated, was expected at the next Strategy Group meeting in April. Somewhat fortuitously Ferrari had used this period of "limbo" to hire Mekies with a standard Swiss gardening leave period of just three months, plus three months extra notice.

Sitting between his two peers, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, who in recent months has been on the same page as Ferrari on many issues, opted not to stir the pot. But he did make a perceptive comment on the role of a gentlemen's agreements in the dog-eat-dog world of F1: "I didn't see any gentlemen in the room when we discussed it..."

McLaren's post-Honda era is still spluttering...

Edd Straw

McLaren headed into the Australian Grand Prix weekend bullish that its reliability troubles have been solved and eager to bolt on its major upgrade package. So, when Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne completed a grand total of six laps in the first hour of FP1, it was an embarrassing start.

Alonso had an exhaust-related problem (during pre-season testing, McLaren admitted it would be revising its cooling to tackle heat soak pockets), while Vandoorne had to sit waiting while the team checked if he had the same issue.

When the car did get going, it proved to be reasonable enough and the pair notched up 31 laps between them in that session. While not best-of-the-rest outside the big three on pace - the searing speed of the Haas prevented that - it was ahead of its most obvious midfield rival, Renault. That still represents a gap of just under 1.3s to the front - a gap that Alonso promised on Thursday would close over the season.

The second session went better, giving hope that the problems might not be too serious. But after a pre-season during which McLaren completed fewer laps than any other team, it won't have helped to have fallen even further behind on mileage today.

...while Sauber's new Alfa era has started with difficulty

Andrew van Leeuwen

There was little doubt over Sauber's spot in the pecking order after the first day of competitive running. Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc were firmly at the bottom of the timesheets both times out today, and not by a little bit.

In the first session, Ericsson was two-tenths slower than next-best Brendon Hartley, before drifting to eight-tenths shy of Sergey Sirotkin in the second session. Rookie Leclerc at least made gains in the second session, having been caught out by the tricky nature of the Albert Park layout first time around, but like his team-mate was still a good 0.8s off anyone not driving a Sauber.

It's all in keeping with Ericsson's brutally honest prediction on Thursday: "If we can have a really good weekend we might be able to squeeze into Q2, but if we can't make Q2 we'll be last."

It's also representative of Sauber's testing form, in which its "unpredictable" new car offered decent peaks but proved tricky to master. Ericsson and Leclerc wanted the C37 tamed for Melbourne, but the performance on Friday suggests it is either still causing them problems - or just isn't quick enough.

Halo sparks start lights concern

Adam Cooper

One of the main concerns about the halo was that it might compromise the view of the grid start lights and the FIA took the issue seriously enough to make some major changes to its traditional set-up, which will be seen in action for the first time on Sunday.

Race director Charlie Whiting has now mandated a standard height for the main set of lights, while a second set - which in previous years had been located half way down down the grid - has now been moved to the front, but mounted lower than the main lights, and offset.

"With the halo what we've asked every circuit to do is to make the lights at a standard height above the track," said Whiting. "We've also put a repeat set of lights, in this case off to the left, over the verge.

"Pole position seems to be the worst case scenario with the halo there - maybe the driver can't quite see the lights, or see only half of them, and he might have to move his head too much. But then he's got a repeat set of lights which are five metres further down [the track]."

Drivers were able to sample the view of the lights through their halos when they made practice starts at the end of both Friday sessions.

"What I thought would be a good idea was to give the driver sight of those lights," said Whiting. "Rather than have them look at them for the first time on Sunday evening."