The first race weekend of the 2026 F1 season, the Australian GP, began with the opening practice sessions, FP1 and FP2; for McLaren it was interesting.
As the first session proved tricky for much of the grid, with several moments of unreliability happening on track, including for the Woking-based team.
The McLaren drivers finished sixth and nineteenth on the timing sheets, with Oscar Piastri ahead of reigning world champion Lando Norris. A gearbox gremlin stopped car #4.
However, the second session was far more promising for McLaren. Oscar Piastri topped the timesheets in FP2, while Lando Norris finished seventh. After the Friday practice sessions, both drivers shared their thoughts on FP2 and outlined their plans heading into the rest of the race weekend.
Lando Norris reflects on a tricky Friday and hopes to recover in FP3
The 2025 F1 world champion, Lando Norris, had a tough time today, finishing 19th in FP1 and 7th in FP2. He explained that it was a tricky day for the start of the season and that they were not able to get the running they hoped for because of reliability issues.
In a McLaren press release, Norris said that, since the regulations are new, time in the car is very important. He also said that spending time in the car is key to understanding and optimizing performance.
They received some promising data from the second half of FP2, but they still have some recovering to do.
McLaren want to work on closing the gap before getting back in the car for FP3.
“A tricky first day, but it’s good to be back in the car for the start of a new season. We didn’t get as much running done as we wanted to this morning, due to some reliability issues, so we’re a little bit behind in terms of running and learnings.
“With these new regulations, time in the car is very important, so we’ve got a bit of work to do this evening to recover. We’ve got some good bits of data to go over from the second half of FP2, and there’s plenty we can learn from what our competitors have been doing. We’ll work hard tonight and try to close that gap before we get back in the car for FP3 tomorrow.”
Oscar Piastri on FP1 and FP2 for McLaren at the 2026 F1 Australian GP
After Friday in Australia, Oscar Piastri noted that FP1 was rather tricky for them.
However, he said FP2 was more normal, with a bit more consistency and things operating more as they expected, which was good.
“Certainly different, that’s for sure. I think FP1 was tricky. I think by far the trickiest and most complicated session I’ve ever had. I think FP2 was a bit more back to, let’s say, a new normal.
“Everything ran a bit smoother, we were able to find a bit more consistency and just have things operate more how we expected them to, which was good.”
When he was asked about qualifying, he said it would be tough.
The 24-year-old added that the practice sessions are also difficult to handle. He explained that it is hard to judge the F1 cars from behind. Trying to do so is very challenging.
He added that there are certainly some major quirks that they will have to get used to.
“It’s going to be tough. I think at the moment we don’t really know exactly how tough. Trying to do practice sessions at the moment is really difficult. If you’re off-sequence with people, I’m sure you’ve probably seen that most of us are launching our laps halfway down the pit straight.
“So trying to judge the car behind is very, very tough. So there’s certainly some pretty major quirks that we’re going to get used to.
“But yeah, it’s going to be an interesting weekend still to go. I think everyone’s probably going to find a lot overnight just with getting things in the place they want.”
Piastri said it’s tough to judge performance at the moment. However, the car is operating closer to expectations, which has helped them find the lap time.
He believes that McLaren is only a small step behind Mercedes and Ferrari. He remains optimistic that optimising the car further could close the gap.
They don’t yet have outright top performance, but while their main focus is to give their full effort, he believes that if everyone is at 100%, they won’t face major issues.
“Tough to know, I think. Especially at the moment, if you can just have the car operate roughly how you expect it to, then you find a huge amount of lap time. I think that’s probably a big thing at the moment. I think we’ve been there or thereabouts with our pace. I’m not sure what our long-run pace looked like. So we’ll have to have a look at that.
“I don’t think we ever thought we were a long way behind Mercedes and Ferrari. For me, I always felt like we were just a little step behind. I’m still optimistic that if we get everything into a more optimal place, maybe we don’t have the outright performance if everyone’s at 100%. But I think the biggest thing is how close you can get to 100% at the moment.”
