by F1 correspondent Michael Butterworth
MELBOURNE, March 14 (Xinhua) -- McLaren's Lando Norris underlined his status as favorite for this year's Formula 1 World Championship, setting the fastest time in first practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park on Friday.
The Briton had played down his title prospects earlier in the week, insisting that Ferrari would be the team to watch in Melbourne, but popped in a time of 1:17.252 right at the end of the hour-long session to top the timesheet.
In hot and sunny conditions at Albert Park, Norris' time was 1.2 seconds faster than his benchmark effort from FP1 in Melbourne last year, which he also topped.
Behind Norris, Carlos Sainz continued the good form that he and Williams had shown in pre-season testing, setting a time of 1:17.401 that was good enough to lead the pack for at least 20 minutes before Norris pipped him at the death.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished the session third, with new teammate Lewis Hamilton only 12th on his first competitive appearance for the Scuderia. The Briton was slower than Leclerc at every point throughout the session, having spoken in Thursday's press conference about the need to adapt to his new team.
Norris' teammate Oscar Piastri finished the session fourth in front of his home crowd, with reigning world champion Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull. The Dutchman's new teammate Liam Lawson had a tough session, seemingly struggling with understeer on his RB21. The New Zealander ran with iridescent flow-vis paint on his car early in the session, suggesting that Red Bull does not yet have a perfect understanding of its new mount's characteristics.
Mercedes had a seemingly tricky hour, with George Russell finishing eighth after spinning on his final run, while rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli ended his first F1 practice session in 14th place.
A quarter of the one-hour session was lost to red flag stoppages - first when Alpine's Jack Doohan kicked gravel up onto the circuit at Turn 7, and later on as Oliver Bearman clouted the wall in his Haas after running wide at Turn 12.
The two stoppages ate into the teams' qualifying simulation runs, and with little low-fuel running on Soft tyres having been completed during pre-season testing, there are many unknowns ahead of Saturday's qualifying session. ■
