practice

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton struck the first blow of the new Formula 1 era with first and second fastest times in opening practice at the Australian Grand Prix.

Leclerc replaced Hamilton in top spot with a late lap that moved him 0.469 seconds clear of the seven-time champion.

Until then, less than 0.1secs had separated Hamilton, Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Verstappen’s new team-mate Isack Hadjar was fourth fastest, 0.820secs off the pace, ahead of 18-year-old Briton Arvid Lindblad, making his debut for the Racing Bulls team.

Aston Martin, whose dire form has been in many ways the story of the new season so far, had a predictably difficult session.

Fernando Alonso was not able to run at all because of a problem with his Honda power-unit. Team-mate Lance Stroll managed just three laps before an engine problem was also discovered on his car.

Team principal Adrian Newey had stunned F1 on Thursday when he said that the vibrations from the Honda engine were so bad that Alonso felt unable to do more than 25 laps without risking permanent nerve damage in his hands.

But this appears to have been a different reliability issue for an engine that is well below the required standard in F1 following the introduction of new rules this season.

A 12-year-old boy died Thursday after collapsing during soccer practice following a hot day in San Bernardino.

Adriel Enriquez collapsed on the soccer field on Feb. 26, while practicing with the Platinum IE soccer club, said his uncle, Joshua Gutierrez in a social media post.

“What started as a normal afternoon doing what he loved turned into every parent’s worst nightmare,” Gutierrez wrote in a GoFundMe launched by the family to help cover funeral costs and expenses.

Paramedics were sent to the scene at about 8:40 p.m., said San Bernardino County Fire Department Capt. Eric Sherwin. Adriel was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“Adriel had no medical issues that we were aware of, and his passing was unexpected and an absolute shock,” Gutierrez wrote on Facebook, alongside a video memorializing his nephew.

Adriel played for Platinum IE since May 2024. Coaches and teammates remembered him as someone who left a mark.

“He was the sweetest most gentle and shy soul with a quiet strength that touched everyone around him,” the club said in a social media post. “Forever our #23.”

The post was liked thousands of times with almost 200 people sharing their condolences in the comments.

Adriel died during a spell of unusually warm winter weather in Southern California. Temperatures peaked at 88 degrees the day he collapsed, according to the National Weather Service.

A cause of death has not yet been determined by the county coroner.

When 32 freshman football players filed excitedly into the meeting room at John McKay Center in January for their first official meeting at USC, each new Trojan from the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2026 was asked to stand up, share their name, number, position and an interesting fact about them.

This was pretty standard fare, as far as ice-breakers go. Albeit with one notable difference from past years.

“It was abnormally long [this year,] for sure,” senior offensive lineman Tobias Raymond said, with a laugh.

As USC opened spring practice on Tuesday, a cursory glance through its spring roster would tell you just how much the Trojans will need those freshmen to find their footing — and fast — in a season likely to be defined by their development. Nearly half of the players in attendance for Tuesday’s first day (46 of 103) were either freshmen or redshirt freshmen. That’s almost triple the current size of USC’s junior or senior classes (16).

If the Trojans have any hope of making the College Football Playoff for the first time in five tries under Lincoln Riley, an influx of 18- and 19-year-olds will play a major part.

“There’s a lot of new guys,” Riley said Tuesday. “Getting a look at these people, seeing where they’re at in terms of their development and where they’ve gotta go, I think the evaluation process is going to be really important.”

At no position will that be more critical than pass catcher, where USC must replace its top two wide receivers, Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, and top two tight ends, Lake McRee and Walker Lyons. In their place steps a deep crop of young talented options, all hoping to emerge this spring.

There will certainly be no shortage of opportunity for USC’s four incoming freshmen receivers (Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, Trent Mosley, Luc Weaver and Tron Baker) and two incoming tight ends (freshman Mark Bowman and junior college transfer Josiah Jefferson) to make that impression. In addition to the void left by Lemon and Lane’s departures, the Trojans will also be without their top returning wideout this spring, as Tanook Hines will sit out the entire session following an offseason procedure.

Hines, who’s only a sophomore, could probably use the next five weeks of spring to develop, considering how much of the Trojans passing attack is likely to rest on his shoulders this fall. But Riley said he thought Hines’ absence could actually be “a blessing in disguise” for the rest of the room.

“All these guys, they’re going to get a ton of reps and they all need them,” Riley said. “What a phenomenal opportunity for all those other guys to develop and to take advantage of those reps. We’re going to need that.”

That directive has been clear enough to USC starting quarterback Jayden Maiava since the Trojans’ fleet of freshmen arrived on campus. Maiava has spent much of the past two months trying to build a connection with young players on both sides of the ball, taking them out to dinners, watching film with them, walking through the playbook and even conducting players-only sessions on the practice field.

“It’s a big impact for the guys I’m going out there with,” Maiava said Tuesday. “Just letting them know I care about them and I care about their success. I want the best for them, and I want them to know that.”

In his third season as starter, Maiava won’t have the benefit of one of college football’s best pass-catching pairs at his disposal. He’ll also enter 2026 on the shortlist for the Heisman Trophy — and all the pressure that comes with that.

Offensive coordinator Luke Huard said last month that Maiava has had “a tremendous sense of urgency” since the end of last season.

Raymond, who will snap to Maiava as a center this spring, said the quarterback’s communication has improved “exponentially.”

“Seeing when someone is down or seeing when someone has a good play and picking them up or congratulating them, but also getting on people when they do something wrong,” Raymond said. “If he sees something, he calls it out. If he sees something good, he calls it out.”

Receiver isn’t the only spot where freshmen will get a serious chance to compete next season. On the offensive line, five-star offensive tackle Keenyi Pepe — at 6-foot-7, 330 pounds — already looks quite capable of contributing on a Big Ten front. The same could be said of edge rusher Luke Wafle — 6-foot-6, 265 pounds — and defensive tackles Jameion Winfield — 6-foot-3, 325 pounds — all of whom were five-star prospects.

Still, it may take some time for that young talent to show through, with USC also breaking in both a new defense and special teams concepts. But for what the Trojans will likely lack in experience this spring, they’ll make up for, in some part, with depth.

“We’ve never had a spring practice, none of us in all of our years, that we’ve had this high of a percentage of your full roster already here for spring,” Riley said. “Which is a huge advantage.”

There’s still the small matter of getting all those newcomers to gel. But on that note, Riley thinks talk of USC’s youth movement overlooks how many talented players are returning.

“We’ve kind of gotten painted on the outside as just this crazy young team,” Riley said. “Like, we do have some really good youth, and I know that class has gotten some attention in terms of how that recruiting process played out, but we’ve got a lot of guys that have played a lot of ball here. … You like the talent that we have, you like the returners. I love the guys we brought in. But like one of the best sports franchises of all time said, ‘You’re not collecting talent, you’re building a team.’

“We’ve got talent. Now we’ve got to build a team.”

Injury report

In addition to being down its No. 1 receiver, USC will be without two of its returning starters on the offensive line this spring. Center Kilian O’Connor and right tackle Justin Tauanuu will sit out while recovering from surgical procedures. Left tackle Elijah Paige didn’t practice on Day 1 of spring ball, either.

Cornerbacks Jontez Williams and Chasen Johnson and safety Christian Pierce won’t participate this spring, either, Riley said Tuesday.

Running back Waymond Jordan was limited to start spring ball, as was defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” asks German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans with a laugh during a recent video call from his home in Berlin.

As he lights his cigarette, he looks every bit the renegade artist he is known for being. At 57, Tillmans is in the midst of staging his 10th exhibition in Los Angeles since the mid-1990s at Regen Projects. He is one of the most celebrated photographers of his era, with a practice that collapses the distance between fine art and the pulse of street culture, spanning epic abstractions and the familiar textures of contemporary life.

At the same time, Tillmans has another life as a serious electronic musician, recording a series of experimental albums, including his most recent, 2021’s “Build From Here.” He is deeply connected to the music world, and photographed the cover for Frank Ocean’s acclaimed “Blonde,” making him a rare artist to be in major museums while genuinely engaged with popular music and the club scene — a bit of a rock star in his own right.

The official opening of his Regen show, “Keep Movin’,” attracted a line that wrapped around the building. Fans are drawn to his varied strands of work, which move instinctively between disparate approaches and subject matter, from famous faces to images sensitive to light and shape, in subjects as simple as the curve of paper folded softly over itself.

A security guard, right, stands near the work “Robin Fischer, Dirostahl, Remscheid 2024” in German-based photographer Wolfgang Tillmans’ current exhibition, “Keep Movin’,” at Regen Projects.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

During an early walk-through for a few dozen invited guests, Tillmans held forth on his personal cosmos, surveying pictures from the experimental to the deeply intimate. Portraits, politically charged tabletop collages and quiet photographs that capture the simple vibrance of daily life are strewn across Regen’s 20,000 square feet of gallery space.

“I see my work evolve more in evolutions, rather than in revolutions,” Tillmans said, gesturing to a conceptual wall-sized image created with a photocopier.

His Regen show, through March 1, also features short video works and the abstractions of camera-less images he considers “pure photography,” created in the darkroom by shining light directly onto photosensitive paper. There are pictures relating to human sexuality and images from nature. Each subject and approach is an ongoing concern left intentionally open-ended, and never contained within a single project, title or grouping. They are all inseparable in his own mind, free from categories or a finite series of pictures.

“I am aware that these art historical categories exist in my oeuvre, but I’m not seeking them out,” Tillmans explained after the walk-through. His practice is not about “working through one series or genre and then moving on to another.”

Installation view of Wolfgang Tillmans’ “Keep Movin’” at Regen Projects.

(Evan Bedford / Regen Projects)

On his trip to Los Angeles, Tillmans made a long-planned visit to the Mt. Wilson Observatory to satisfy his lifelong interest in astronomy. He used the giant telescope to capture the twinkling of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. This preoccupation resurfaces at Regen in a large-scale print of 2023’s “Flight Honolulu to Guam,” revealing a star field above the clouds.

Tillmans’ interest in stargazing goes back to his adolescence, and images of the moon and cosmos recur in his work. “It gave me a sense of not being lonely, seeing the infinite sky and universe,” he says. “I always felt it was a very grounding experience that all humans share. I always got something from this — besides the beauty and the formal marvel of it all — this sense of location and locating myself.”

His depiction of the heavens is just one of many threads and themes that run through his decades of work.

A piece of work personally hung by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in his current exhibition, “Keep Movin’” at Regen Projects.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Early in his career, Tillmans began shooting for the British street style magazine i-D, creating portraits of the famous and unfamous, while also documenting club life and gay culture. In 1995, Taschen published his first book, which made a stir with portraits of soft, indirect illumination, emphasizing naturalness. By avoiding the dramatic lighting and exaggerated special effects often seen in pictures of youth culture, he landed on a distinctive visual style.

“I felt the heaviness of life and the joy of life,” Tillmans says. “I saw myself as a multifaceted complex being, not just as young. So I experimented with lighting and film — how can I photograph my contemporaries in a way that approximates the way that I see through my eyes? And that was stripping back anything effectful, almost taking away the camera.”

He continues to do assignment work for magazines, which he considers part of his artistic practice. Several recent portraits are at Regen, including a foundry worker in Tillmans’ hometown of Remscheid and another of actor Jodie Foster. The editorial work brings him into contact with people and places he might not otherwise meet.

In 2000 Tillmans became the first photographer and first non-British artist to win the prestigious Turner Award. Tate Britain staged his mid-career retrospective in 2003 and the Hammer Museum in Westwood mounted his first major U.S. retrospective that same year, which traveled to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

Coming after major retrospectives at the Pompidou Centre in Paris last year and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in 2022, the Regen show dispenses with the retrospective frame while quietly performing a similar task — taking in the main currents of Tillmans’ work over the past two decades, and a few images dating to the late ‘80s. His relationship with the gallery began with his first Los Angeles exhibition.

Visitors walk through photographer Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition, “Keep Movin’,” at Regen Projects in Los Angeles.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

As ever, the images are displayed in a startling range of shapes and sizes: framed and unframed, huge wall-size prints hang alongside tiny, snapshot-scale pictures. One of the largest, “Panorama, left” (2006), spans nearly 20 feet and hangs only from bulldog clips. Smaller pictures are simply taped to the wall, but nothing is meant to indicate hierarchy.

“The biggest may not be the most important, and the smallest might be overlooked,” he explains. “It’s a little bit like projecting the way that I look at the world.”

In his first decade of exhibitions, he had no frames at all. “I taped those photographs to the wall, not as a gesture of disrespectful grunginess, but as a gesture of purity,” he adds. “That sense of immediacy — and not imbuing something with outside signifiers of value — lets the fragile piece of paper speak for itself.”

One of the current show’s larger conceptual pieces, “Memorial for the Victims of Organized Religion II,” fills a corner with 48 rectangular portrait-sized photographs, all of them solid black or dark blue. It’s a near-replica of a work shown at the Pompidou with the same solemn title, created to recognize those “physically maimed or mentally harmed” by doctrine and intolerance.

“I myself have a spiritual side,” says Tillmans, still grateful for positive experiences attending a Lutheran church in his youth. “But over the years I’ve become ever more distrustful of organized religions and seeing the role of religion in government. I find it incredibly immodest for humans to tell other humans what God wants.”

When he’s not exploring his spirituality and creativity visually, he focuses his energy on the music world. It’s a natural setting for Tillmans, who is increasingly active releasing his own electronic-based pop music. He’s occasionally worked as a DJ, and has been involved in acid house, techno and other electronic music. Despite his notoriety in the art world, he has no concern about hitting the charts.

“This is part of my work. I’m doing it the same way that I’m doing a photograph. I’m not doing a photograph to be peak popular in two months’ time,” Tillmans said. “It’s there and it’s still there in 24 years.”