Ah, I see what you're saying now.

If you have the (non-array) formula in cell F3:

=A1:G1

the reason the value in F1 is returned is that Excel employs implicit intersection of the range you specify (A1:G1) with the column in which the formula lies (F:F). So entering the same formula but in cell B3 would return the value in B1.

According to exceljet.net (see here), any array formula explicitly disables this behaviour. I'm not sure if that's the correct description or not, though clearly with array-entry any formula referencing a range will always return the first value in that range, irrespective of the cell in which the formula lies.

Regards