Australian Grand Prix Practice: Norris Tops Chaotic Session, Albon Crashes
In a frenetic opening practice session at the Australian Grand Prix, McLaren’s Lando Norris emerged as the pace-setter, but the hour-long session was marred by a significant crash involving Williams driver Alexander Albon.
The session began with Fernando Alonso catching attention by leading the pack out of the pits with a unique aerodynamic load measuring device attached to his Aston Martin. However, it was George Russell who initially set the fastest lap time.
As the session progressed, Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Charles Leclerc traded fastest times, with only a few drivers opting for the soft tire compound from the outset.
Leclerc eventually set the benchmark time of 1m19.110s before Verstappen surpassed it with a time of 1m18.670s. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda impressed by splitting the early leaders on the medium compound tires.
Halfway through the session, Norris propelled McLaren to the top of the timesheets with a lap time of 1m18.564s on the rarely used C5 soft tires.
However, the session came to a halt when Albon suffered a violent crash, snapping his car sideways after hitting a kerb, resulting in extensive damage to his Williams and scattering debris across the track.
Following a lengthy delay to clear the track and attend to Albon, the session resumed with just nine minutes remaining. Despite several drivers attempting late flying laps, Norris managed to hold onto the top spot, with Verstappen and Russell settling for second and third respectively.
Notable incidents in the session included Lewis Hamilton and Perez both going off track during their final flying laps, while Alonso endured a challenging session, finishing in 18th place after missing a significant portion of running due to repairs following an earlier off-track excursion.
The session provided a taste of the unpredictable action expected throughout the race weekend in Melbourne, setting the stage for an exciting qualifying session and race ahead.
Here the full results: 
