Oscar Piastri says McLaren remains a “little step behind” rivals Mercedes and Ferrari despite ending the first day of the new Formula 1 season fastest at the Australian Grand Prix.

Piastri set the headline lap time in his McLaren to finish two tenths clear of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who was a tenth faster than Mercedes teammate George Russell.

Ferrari also demonstrated strong pace but it was McLaren who grabbed the headlines on the first competitive day of on-track action in F1’s new era.

McLaren suffered some reliability gremlins on both cars in first practice before enjoying a smoother second hour of running.

“FP1 was tricky, by far the trickiest and most complicated session I’ve ever had,” Piastri said. “I think FP2 was a bit more back to, let’s say, a new normal.

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“Everything ran a bit smoother. We were able to find a bit more consistency and have things operate a bit more as we expected them to.”

Asked if he felt Friday provided a representative picture of the 2026 pecking order, Piastri replied: “Tough to know. I think especially at the moment, if you can have the car operate roughy as 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 but I’m not sure what our long run pace looked like. So we’ll have to have a look at that, but I don’t think we ever thought we were a long way behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

“For me, I always felt that we were only a little step behind and I’m still optimistic that if we get everything into a more optimal place, maybe we don’t have the outright performance if everyone is at 100 percent, but I think the biggest thing is how close can you get to 100 percent at the moment.”

Piastri’s team-mate Lando Norris had a tougher day, with the reigning world champion only able to complete seven laps in FP1, before ending up a full second adrift with a time only good enough for seventh in FP2.

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“We’re in a reasonable position in regard to getting the car dialled in, but overnight we’ll review where we can keep making steps forward, focusing across all aspects of car setup, tyres and power unit management and optimisation,” McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall said.

“With limited practice time before qualifying, everyone is still refining their approach, and we saw improvements from FP1 to FP2 across the board. Going into qualifying tomorrow, we hope to be in the fight – precision matters more than ever and it will be important to ensure we execute the preparation perfectly with the expected traffic.”

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