The first two hours of on-track action at the Australian Grand Prix have given us more clues about the true 2026 Formula 1 pecking order, with some surprises versus the expected order after pre-season testing.

Here's our pick of the key winners and losers from Friday in Melbourne.

Loser: Aston Martin

Easily the biggest loser of Friday practice in Australia.

Adrian Newey has confirmed Honda has only two working batteries left, and even if the car can be made to run cleanly, the engine is severely down on power.

Fernando Alonso didn't appear at all in FP1, and in FP2 he managed 18 difficult laps, ending up almost five seconds off the pace and a full second off the Valtteri Bottas-driven Cadillac.

Lance Stroll only did three laps in FP1 and another 13 in FP2. He was six seconds off the pace.

At this rate, the Aston Martin at least looks quick enough to qualify for the race, but even if the batteries survive long enough for Alonso and Stroll to participate in Q1, it's difficult to see how they outqualify anyone - even the brand new Cadillacs - given Honda's current limitations.

The first race weekend for this so-called 'superteam' is shaping up to be nothing short of an embarrassment already. - Ben Anderson

Winner: Mercedes

The pre-season favourite tag looked maybe not shaky, but certainly less convincing than expected as George Russell and Kimi Antonelli kept falling short of what the Ferraris and Red Bulls could do in first practice, even when switching to softs early.

FP2 wasn't very tidy, especially for Russell, but it was effective. This doesn't look like the predicted Mercedes walkover, and it wasn't actually fastest in either session, but it heads into Saturday with more to be pleased about overall than any other team. - Matt Beer

Loser: Lando Norris

A difficult start all told for F1's new reigning world champion. Norris was straight on the radio complaining about "shocking" downshifts in first practice and had barely registered a laptime before he was parked up in the McLaren garage with what team CEO Zak Brown later revealed was a clutch problem.

Brown reckoned that lack of mileage in FP1 explained why Norris finished FP2 a second off team-mate Oscar Piastri, suggesting there is significant time to be gained or lost depending on your growing familiarity with how the circuit layout impacts your car's energy harvesting needs.

The bright spot for Norris is that he can probably crib off Piastri's data to at least start Saturday's final practice session from a better place. - BA

Winner: Oscar Piastri

Slowing to a crawl with a temporary lack of power was a limp start to Piastri's home grand prix weekend and McLaren's title defence.

But he ended the day fastest overall and perhaps most importantly comfortably clear of reigning champion team-mate Norris, who had a relatively troubled day.

Though McLaren hasn't looked as consistently convincing as Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, you can't argue with the fact that it and Piastri end day one of F1 2026 fastest on merit. - MB

Loser: Williams

The Williams looked heavy and unwieldy in testing and that impression continued in Friday practice in Australia. The FW48 was only the eighth-quickest car in both sessions and more than two seconds off the outright pace in FP2. 

That means Williams is currently battling Alpine to avoid being the team that joins Aston Martin and Cadillac in going no further than Q1 on Saturday.

Reliability also looks troublesome, with Alex Albon suffering a hydraulics problem in FP1 and Carlos Sainz stuck in the garage after just 10 laps in FP2 with what the team suspects was a leak somewhere in the vicinity of the engine/gearbox installation.

All-in-all a very underwhelming start for both of Mercedes' midfield customer teams, but I suppose for Williams this was at least expected.

Doesn't make it any less disappointing, though. - BA

Winner: Ferrari

Extracting its potential across a full grand prix weekend without tripping itself up has been a bigger mission for Ferrari in recent years than actually going fast, so let's not get too excited yet about it starting 2026 with an opening practice 1-2.

There's a lot to be genuinely encouraged by here, though. Ferrari looks firmly in the mix at the front and it has two drivers up there for the first time in a while as well, with Lewis Hamilton living up to his billing of himself as a different person in 2026 so far - even if the fact he ended up ahead of Charles Leclerc in the final times owed quite a lot to his team-mate having a sketchy flying lap. - MB

Loser: Sergio Perez

Perez's first F1 race weekend in 14 months hasn't started the way he'd have hoped, with 14 laps completed in FP1. He then had to wait the majority of FP2 to leave the garage, only to stop on track after two laps.

And his only attempt at a timed lap was ruined by Antonelli's Mercedes passing him on the run to Turn 1 anyway!

Team-mate Bottas got 52 laps in comparison, something that will still be useful to Perez, but it's clear Bottas is the better-prepared returning driver ahead of their first F1 qualifying sessions in over a year. - Josh Suttill

Winner: Arvid Lindblad 

F1 2026's sole rookie enjoyed a really promising start to his first full F1 race weekend, placing fifth in FP1 and eighth in FP2, with a pace deficit of just over a second in each session.

That meant he was the unlikely midfield leader in both sessions. It's something that could be explained by a generous fuel load and run plan from a Racing Bulls team keen to give him confidence. 

But it was still 52 laps banked with very few errors, with his pitlane clash with Russell (which looked more like Russell barging in rather than a mistake from Lindblad), and his stoppage in the pitlane in FP1, Lindblad's only real dramas. 

Racing Bulls has also looked stronger here than it did at times in Bahrain, meaning Lindblad can target escaping Q1 as a minimum. - JS

Want more insight from the Australian GP? You'll find Jon Noble's trackside view later today on The Race Members' Club, plus plenty more bonus content. Get 90% off your first month here.

Loser: Alpine 

After testing, our F1 team had Haas and Alpine leading the midfield group and while Haas looked there or thereabouts on Friday in Melbourne, Alpine didn't.

Neither driver cracked the top 15 in either session, with lead driver Pierre Gasly 2.438s off the pace in FP2.

Alpine's Dave Greenwood says it has "sizeable chunks of laptime" that it knows it can recover for Saturday, as everything was far from optimised on Friday. But the question is, will that be bigger than the chunks of laptime its rivals will find overnight, too? - JS