Leader at home
Between Mercedes and Ferrari, McLaren emerges. The reigning world champions, who were perhaps talked about too little during the winter, returned to the top of the standings at the end of the second free practice session of the Australian GP. Taking the lead with the best time was Oscar Piastri, the local crowd’s idol, who finished two tenths ahead of Antonelli and three tenths ahead of the British pair Russell-Hamilton. Interviewed by Sky Sports at the end of the session, however, the third-place finisher of the 2025 World Championship showed realism, acknowledging that the MCL40 is probably not yet the car to beat.
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“The weekend started decently – Piastri commented – FP2 went much better than FP1, but there are still many things to fine-tune. Everything is very different compared to last year. The session went smoothly, we managed to find good consistency. We are trying to evaluate what we learned today, but I believe everyone will take a good step forward tomorrow and we will have to try to grow as well. We hope to be able to fight for the front rows, although I don’t know if we can do it for pole. I haven’t seen what the race pace situation is, but I’m not sure it’s as good as some of our rivals. The main goal now is to build some continuity”.
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