NEW DELHI, March 7 -- Reigning world champion Lando Norris struggled with his gearbox. Four-time world champion Max Verstappen locked up, went off-piste and displayed his rally skills as he negotiated gravel at Melbourne's Albert Park. The grid's only rookie, Arvid Lindblad, suffered teething troubles as his Racing Bull conked off. Formula 1 faced its usual season-opening shenanigans as the first two practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix got underway on Friday. This also quelled the doubts and criticism as the newer generation of cars looked sprightly, navigating corners in vehicles that have much less grip than in yesteryears. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and McLaren's Oscar Piastri topped the timesheets in the two sessions. But are they the favourites going into Sunday's race? "We just need to look at the general form as a guide for reliability. As much as we could tell from lap times from testing, Mercedes definitely are looking in a good place with their Power Unit (PU). That leads me to conclude that Mercedes will be the strongest of those teams," former racer David Coulthard told HT from Melbourne. "My prediction would be that they would challenge for both the drivers' and constructors' championship, George (Russell) being the favourite of the two (Mercedes) drivers on the basis that he still was stronger than Kimi (Antonelli) across the season last year. Although Kimi will be more experienced, he's still on a journey of development." The 54-year-old is on point. Not just the Silver Arrows but all teams powered by Mercedes PUs looked strong in the practice sessions which includes Alpine, Williams and McLaren. Using Renault engines, Alpine ended 10th and last in 2025. This year, the French team looks like the leader of the midfield teams. There's been a lot of noise around the newer engines which roughly have a 50-50 energy output divided between the internal combustion engine and electrical energy. This has led to a drop in top speeds with drivers, especially Verstappen, criticising them and calling it "Formula E on steroids" and "anti-racing". Coulthard, who had a 14-year long F1 career, welcomed it. "I understand as a driver and as a fan that we want to see absolute performance of the driver and the car. If we feel there's a lot more management, then that becomes a feeling of more tactics involved. If I use boxing analogy, we want to imagine the boxers going toe-to-toe, punching each other as hard as they can. We don't really want to imagine that they're playing the percentages and making it go 12 rounds because it puts on a longer spectacle." he said....