Charles Leclerc, from Monaco, drove the Ferrari SF-24 car. During the final practice session for the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, Leclerc set the fastest time. There were a series of late lap times, with Carlos Sainz, Leclerc’s teammate, initially leading the time sheets with medium tires. However, Max Verstappen and then Leclerc surpassed him. Leclerc’s time of 1:16.714s put him just 0.020s ahead of Verstappen, while Sainz was 0.077s behind his teammate in third place.
Some drivers struggled to improve their times with the soft tires, now composed of the C5 compound, softer than in 2023. Sainz was unable to improve with the soft tires and his best time remained from his lap on medium tires. Verstappen also had difficulties with the high-speed stability of his car on soft tires.
There was a noticeable improvement in the pace of the Mercedes team, with Lewis Hamilton finishing in fourth place, just a tenth of a second behind Leclerc. His teammate George Russell finished fifth. Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin finished in sixth place, followed by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris of McLaren finished ninth and tenth, respectively, with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in between.
Yuki Tsunoda finished in eleventh place, less than a second behind Leclerc’s time. The Sauber team had Valtteri Bottas in twelfth place and Zhou Guanyu in fourteenth place. Alex Albon, the only remaining Williams driver after Logan Sargeant’s withdrawal, finished thirteenth.
The Alpine team continued to struggle, with Esteban Ocon in fifteenth place and Pierre Gasly being the slowest of the remaining nineteen competitors. Haas finished in sixteenth and seventeenth place, with Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen separated by just two hundredths of a second. Daniel Ricciardo couldn’t keep up with Tsunoda’s pace and finished in eighteenth place.
