Oscar Piastri and his McLaren team are at a loss to explain their disappointing pace on the opening day of practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Aussie finished Friday practice in seventh, with teammate Lando Norris buried down in 19th on the time sheet, stymied by mechanical gremlins.
Oscar Piastri during practice for the Monaco Grand Prix. Getty Images
The Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and home hero Charles Leclerc topped the day’s running. Piastri was more than a second slower.
“Today was certainly a tough day for the team. We’re not where we want to be, and the gap to the front is larger than we had hoped for,” Piastri said.
“We made some small steps forward between the first and second practice sessions, but we’re still a second off the pace, which shows how much work we have to do.
“We need to go through the data and find some answers overnight because, as it stands, we are simply not quick enough.
“There’s no single solution that will turn things around completely, but we will explore every option available to find performance and be in a more competitive position for the rest of the weekend.”
Qualifying is of utmost importance in Monaco. Since 2000, no winner has started lower than third on the grid, and most have started on the front row.
Piastri and his McLaren team were off the pace on Friday in the principality. Getty Images
McLaren is celebrating its 1000th grand prix in the principality, which coincidentally is where founder Bruce McLaren first entered a team under his own name in 1966. The car he drove that weekend is in Monaco, and has been driven in demonstration laps by two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen, who won both his titles with the team.
Norris is defending Monaco champion. Piastri finished third.
Red Bull ace first Monaco victim
Earlier in the day, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar became the unforgiving circuit’s first victim of the weekend when he crashed in opening practice.
At the second part of the swimming pool section – the track literally diverts around a swimming pool – Hadjar lost the rear-end and slid nose-first into the barrier.
He was uninjured, and his car was quickly craned away as the red flags flew.
While he took no further part in that opening session, the Red Bull mechanics were able to get the car back on track for the second session hours later.
Isack Hadjar was the first F1 driver to crash during the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix weekend. Fox Sports
Title Antonelli’s ‘to lose’, says teammate
Meanwhile, George Russell believes the title is his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli’s “to lose”.
Russell won the season-opener in Melbourne, but the young Italian has since won the past four grands prix in China, Japan, Miami and Canada. He is the first driver in the history of the sport to claim his first four grands prix victories on the bounce.
As a result of Russell’s retirement in Montreal with an engine failure, Antonelli leads the championship by 43 points.
“You’ve got such a buffer, it feels like you can only keep it or you can lose it. And I think it’s his to lose,” Russell said ahead of practice.
“So, my mindset is to enjoy every single race, try and win every single race. I just need to continue being the guy who’s coming out on top, even if he’s the one at the moment who’s getting the results.”
It seems a surprisingly pessimistic take given Monaco is just the sixth of a 22-race season. If Russell was to win each race and have Antonelli finish second, he would re-take the lead of the championship at the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
That’s not taking into account any mechanical unreliability – Russell’s Montreal engine failure proved the tri-star is not infallible – or errors on Antonelli’s side of the garage.
George Russell during practice. Getty Images
The silver arrows have dominated the early part of the season. Only for the Miami sprint, where Lando Norris took victory from pole, has a Mercedes not been at the top of the results for a qualifying session or race.
But on Friday in Monaco, both seem to be a step behind the Ferrari pair.
There is another hour-long practice session on Saturday evening (AEST), before qualifying begins at midnight. The race will begin at 11pm Sunday.