Ferrari’s Australian GP: Five key takeaways from a weekend of mixed fortunes

Scuderia Ferrari’s season kicked off at Albert Park in Melbourne, and the action provided plenty of talking points.

Whilst the weekend didn’t entirely go to plan, it gave indications of a potentially wide-open title race and glimpses of how successful the team could be this season.

Here, Sports New Blitz writer and Ferrari fan Luca Salmasi takes a look at five key talking points from Ferrari’s opening race of the season.

Qualifying is still a weakness

In the first free practice session, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton aimed to make a strong start for Ferrari, with the Monegasque setting the fastest time, closely followed by his teammate, which gave the team plenty of confidence heading into the rest of the weekend.

Despite the positive start, things changed as qualifying proved to be quite underwhelming; initially, it didn’t look as though Ferrari would find it easy to join the battle for Sunday’s race.

Ferrari felt confident enough to run on medium tyres in Q1, and both cars were initially quite quick. 

However, once soft tyres were used in Q2 and Q3, neither Leclerc nor Hamilton matched their earlier pace. While both made it into the final 10, neither could come close to competing with Mercedes on pure pace alone.

Strong start to the Grand Prix

With the first race of the season under the new regulations and a brand-new start procedure in place, it was uncertain how each team would adapt, but Ferrari seemed to have one of the best starts on the grid.

Charles Leclerc capitalised on Mercedes’ sluggish start to overtake them into turn 1 and swiftly take the lead of the Grand Prix, taking part in a brilliant battle with George Russell over the first 10 laps for the lead.

Lewis Hamilton also had a strong start, moving from P7 to P3 in his pursuit of former team-mate George Russell, as he fought hard with Leclerc during the opening laps of the

race.

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Strategy mistake proves costly

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were right behind the two Mercedes and appeared to be set for a competitive and closely-contested Australian Grand Prix.

However, a virtual safety car on Lap 12 to recover Isaack Hadjar’s Red Bull prompted Mercedes to bring both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in for inexpensive pitstops.

Although it was an obvious choice for Ferrari to follow suit, they gambled on there being another potential VSC or full safety car and decided to stay out with both Leclerc and Hamilton, even though they would have significantly reduced the time they would have spent at the back of the pack had they pitted.

 By the time Leclerc pitted on lap 25 and Hamilton on lap 28, this left the pair 16 seconds behind Russell, preventing them from making significant progress - and they simply couldn’t match the pace in the second half of the race to get back into the fight for the lead of the race.

Highly competitive race pace

Despite the disappointing result, Ferrari can briefly glimpse a strong race pace as an encouraging sign for the team moving forward, as they immediately began fighting at the front of the field.

However, it was all for nothing, as the strategic decision to pit both drivers late allowed Mercedes to gain an advantage, and by that point in the race, it was about limiting damage, as they had created too large a gap to the frontrunners, removing any realistic chance of fighting for the win despite their pace.

Encouraging start to the season

After Ferrari’s challenging 2025 season, the Australian Grand Prix gave the Scuderia an encouraging start to 2026. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a promising beginning.

They showed strong race pace and greatly improved from their Saturday qualifying performance. Among all the teams on the grid, they seem to have nearly perfected the new race start procedure, which looks to be a crucial part of the 2026 regulations. 

As the season goes on, this will be a key factor in any success they may achieve. If they have the pace to compete with Mercedes, this could turn into a significant advantage, especially since Mercedes doesn’t seem to have fully perfected the new start procedure.

However, a recurring issue that still troubles Ferrari is their strategic inconsistencies.

While it isn’t certain whether the race would have gone differently had Ferrari used the VSC more effectively to pit both cars, it ultimately did cost Ferrari a potential opportunity to give Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton the chance to properly compete for the race win.

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