Australian F1 GP: session times, how and where to watch | OneFootball

The top tier of motorsport raises the curtain on the season at the Australian GP. The event takes place at Melbourne’s Albert Park, where Franco Colapinto will be present with his Alpine.

Formula 1 opens the 2026 season at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, where the Australian Grand Prix will be held. The Argentine Franco Colapinto will be present with his Alpine, alongside the rest of the grid, which features standout names such as four-time champion Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, the recent champion who will defend his crown.

According to Argentina’s time zone, the action will kick off on Thursday night with the first session of free practice and will continue on Friday with qualifying: from Argentina, the live broadcast can be watched on cable and through online platforms.

Given the 14-hour time difference with Oceania, the practice sessions, qualifying, and the Australian GP will mostly take place during the Argentine early morning hours. Something similar will happen for the second and third rounds of the championship, which will be held in Asia: China and Japan, respectively.

The venue will be the Albert Park street circuit in Melbourne, which has the following characteristics:

Australian GP: How Franco Colapinto arrives at his debut

This will be the first time that Argentine driver Franco Colapinto has the chance to start a Formula 1 season from the beginning. His official F1 debut was in August 2024, when he replaced Logan Sargeant at Williams. Last year, he did the same by replacing Jack Doohan at Alpine.

Now, Colapinto arrives in Australia after a complete preseason and with better feelings, as for the first time he was able to participate in the car’s development alongside his teammate, Frenchman Pierre Gasly.

The Argentine driver has already had several opportunities to get behind the wheel of the Alpine A526, first during the shakedown in Barcelona, the first contact drivers have with their cars, which took place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Then, Colapinto took part in the double session of official F1 testing at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, where he showed good form and set a time of 1:33.818 compared to his teammate Pierre Gasly’s 1:33.421. The best time was set by Charles Leclerc with Ferrari (1:31.992).

Alpine’s improvements heading into Melbourne

This year, the F1 technical regulations have changed: in addition to the traditional DRS on the rear wing, another has been added to the front wing, and now the electric motor’s power is more important; in fact, it is almost equal to that provided by the combustion power unit.

In this context, Alpine made a bold move: it canceled its own Renault engine program and switched to being supplied by Mercedes, which also provides the gearbox. This, combined with the strong aerodynamic work by engineer David Sánchez, seems to have put the French team a few steps ahead compared to last year.

A bonus: so far Alpine has not used the full power of its Mercedes engine in preseason testing, and the complete configuration is expected to debut at the Australian GP, so the French car could even improve its performance in this official debut.

Days and times for F1 free practice and qualifying in Australia

The Formula 1 action at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit will officially begin on Thursday, March 5 at 10:30 p.m. (Argentine time) with the first free practice session and will continue on Friday, March 6, with qualifying. The official days and times are detailed below:

Saturday, March 7

All free practice sessions and qualifying can be watched live in Argentina via Disney+, Fox Sports, and the official Formula 1 app, F1 TV.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.