You open a new tab that is set to go to your homepage. Your homepage is Google. You open a new tab and the focus is on the Google URL (https://google.com.au in my case). To do a new search you must click on the Google Search Bar and type in your search.
But you also can start typing in address bar (or omnibox as Google call it) too to perform a search. As that’s the functionality of address bar too. And it’ll take you to your default search engine.
So I think having Google set as new tab and focus on search box (1st screenshot) is redundant.