McLaren’s Oscar Piastri powered to the fastest time in Friday’s second practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, usurping the dominant Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.
Piastri is yet to start a grand prix this season but the Australian gave a reminder of his talent with a lap of 1min 30.133sec indry, sunny conditions at Suzuka.
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The 19-year-old Italian Antonelli, who won the first grand prix of his career in China two weeks ago, was second, 0.092secbehind Piastri.
Early championship leader Russell, who was fastest in the morning practice ahead of Antonelli, was third.
Piastri has endured a nightmare start to the season, crashing on his way to the grid at the opener in Australia and failing to startthe grand prix in China because of a technical problem.
His McLaren team-mate and world champion Lando Norris clocked the fourth-fastest practice time after sitting out the firsthalf of the session with a suspected hydraulic leak.
Britain’s Norris, who did not start the Chinese Grand Prix because of a separate technical issue to Piastri, also missed half of the morning practice session.
“McLaren have made a step forward. They look much closer to Mercedes,” Sky Sports F1’s Bernie Collins noted after the session.
“Lando will feel on the back foot but will have lots of data from Oscar to go through and can catch up.
Karun Chandhok added: “I’m encouraged by what we have seen from McLaren.”
Russell hits out at rivals
Mercedes driver George Russell has claimed rival teams are trying to “slow us down” and insisted “I don’t think it’s quite right”.
The Silver Arrows have made a sensational start to the 2026 season, setting the pace under the new regulations with back-to-back one-two finishes.
However, there has been criticism of the new rules, with some teams calling for the regulations to be altered to improve the racing.
The FIA has responded by tweaking the rules ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix — with the permitted energy recharged reduced from 9.0 megajoules to 8.0 megajoules..
In essence, this means the cars will be able to recharge their batteries more at the end of the straights so they can attack the corners more aggressively.
Further rule changes have been a source of speculation — with Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes car coming under scrutiny after his front wing appeared to stay open for longer than the maximum 0.4 seconds in China.
But Russell denied this was enabling them to gain an advantage, and has hit back at those in the paddock that are attempting to challenge their dominance.
Ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, he said: “That’s just how sport goes on to be honest. That has always been the case.
“We have worked so hard to get ourselves in this position, and the best team should come out on top. We’ve obviously had four years of struggle. There have been two other teams over four years who have dominated and won.
“Just because we’re sort of back on top, I don’t think it’s quite right, everybody’s trying to slow us down, especially when you’re two races in.
“It’s a big old season, so things will change. We’ve already seen Red Bull is overweight and some things we saw in the press last week, McLaren haven’t brought an upgrade to the car. They’re still running their Bahrain package.
“We shouldn’t forget these things. We do have an advantage right now, but I think we’ve just really hit the ground running and done a great job. We hope it continues.”
Russell’s comments come after he recently called Ferrari “a bit silly” and “selfish” for wanting to keep the start regulations as they are.
The Scuderia were the fastest team off the line in Australia and China, and now a five-second start procedure has been implemented to help with a smoother adjustment to the new power units.
In response to Russell’s comments, Ferrari team principal Vasseur said: said: “We already changed massively the rule of the start with the five-second story.
“One year ago, I went to the FIA. I raised the hand on the starting procedure to say ‘guys it will be difficult’.
“The reply was clear that we have to design the car fitting with the regulation and not to change the regulation fitting with the car.
“We designed the car fitting with the regulation, the change of the five seconds, the blue light story, didn’t help us at all, but I think at one stage enough is enough.”
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