McLaren stands up to Mercedes dominance with the Australian driver; For Checo the session was a disaster
Oscar Piastri set the best time in the second Free Practice for the Japanese Grand Prix of Formula 1a session plagued by technical incidents and in which Lando Norris He ended up going out into the gravel at the ‘spoon’ curve.
Difficult session from the start
FP2 started with shocks. Pierre Gasly almost collided with Alex Albon when exiting the pits in the first minutes, while the Thai’s Williams shut down with 48 minutes remaining, although he was able to turn on the power unit and return to the pits under his own power.
Lando Norris, who had just led McLaren in FP1, could not start in the first minutes of the session due to problems with the hydraulic system. When he finally took the track, there was less than 20 minutes left to finish practice, completing just 7 laps.
Piastri takes command, is Mercedes losing pace?
Oscar Piastri took advantage of the time on the track to set a 1:30.133 that no one could beat; He beat Kimi Antonelli by 92 thousandths and George Russell by 205 thousandths.
George Russell showed a noticeable loss of speed, reporting between 55 and 60 km/h less as he reached 130R, which complicated his quest for a competitive time.
The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished P5 and P6 respectively, more than seven tenths behind the Australian’s McLaren.
Max Verstappen continues without finding the rhythm and finished in P10, more than 1.3 seconds behind Piastri.
Czech with problems in his Cadillac
Sergio Pérez was barely able to complete 5 laps in the entire session with a problem that was not determined, but checking the team radio points to the electrical energy deployment software, finishing in P20 with a time of 1:33.689, more than 3.5 seconds from the lead. His teammate Valtteri Bottas was in P18.
The Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll closed the classification among those who set time, while Arvid Lindblad did not record a timed lap due to problems with his gearbox.
