Oscar Piastri labelled his soft tyre run during second practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix as \u201cpretty average\u201d after ending the session down in P12, leaving the Australian to target a \u201cmore consistent\u201d day on Saturday.<\/p>\n
While McLaren<\/a> team mate Lando Norris<\/a> handed his car over to Pato O\u2019Ward for one of the squad\u2019s rookie outings in Free Practice 1<\/a>, Piastri<\/a> was in action for the opening hour of running and claimed P4 on the timesheets.<\/p>\n However, after returning for the second session<\/a> later on Friday, the championship leader did not quite put his soft-shod lap together and found himself down in 12th \u2013 his effort eight-tenths off the pace-setting time of Red Bull<\/a>\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> \u2013 while Norris took fourth place.<\/p>\n Asked for his thoughts on the day after jumping out of the car, Piastri responded: \u201cIt was okay. I think, yeah, the lap on softs and low fuel was pretty average, so I\u2019m not surprised with the lap time.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we tried a lot of things, we\u2019ll go through and have a look at what worked, what didn\u2019t, but overall I felt reasonable. We\u2019ll see what we can tune up for tomorrow and try and make things just a bit more consistent is the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n It follows on from a tricky weekend for Piastri last time out in Austin, during which the 24-year-old recorded a DNF in Saturday\u2019s Sprint after a Lap 1 melee before finishing Sunday\u2019s race back in P5. Verstappen, meanwhile, claimed victory and closed the gap down further in the championship standings<\/a>.<\/p>\n In terms of whether he and the team have since been able to understand why they had a deficit at the Circuit of The Americas, Piastri said: \u201cYeah, there were a few things that we identified from Austin.<\/p>\n \u201cI think obviously it was a pretty messy weekend as well, so I think [there were] plenty of things that we found \u2013 all small things but when you put them all together they add up, so I think we\u2019ve got a good handle on last week.\u201d<\/p>\n