{"id":330237,"date":"2025-12-05T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330237\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T22:02:08","slug":"not-a-bad-day-for-norris-and-piastri-but-they-want-more-at-f1-abu-dhabi-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330237\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNot a bad day\u201d for Norris and Piastri, but they want more at F1 Abu Dhabi GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 title contenders Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> had a decent Friday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but steer well clear of overconfidence ahead of the decisive sessions.<\/p>\n

Norris topped both practice sessions at Yas Marina, outpacing runner-up Max Verstappen<\/a> by 0.008s in Free Practice 1 and 0.363s in FP2, as the Red Bull driver mounts a title challenge with a 12-point deficit.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously from the times and everything, things are good at the minute, but I still want a bit more from the car,\u201d Norris commented. \u201cNot completely happy, not completely confident, we’re a bit in the middle of trying some different things and trying to understand some things with the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully some more stuff we can get out of it overnight, but it’s not been a bad day for sure. It has been a positive day, but we always know it gets a lot closer going into quali, so nothing to smile about just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team-mate Piastri, who is 16 points down on Norris in the championship, had to skip FP1 as McLaren<\/a> fulfilled the rookie regulations for 2025 with Pato O’Ward<\/a>\u00a0in action. Asked if that gave him an edge over Piastri going into Saturday, Norris replied with a sharp \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: Steven Tee \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s 29 laps yielded the 11th-fastest time in FP2, 0.680s slower than Norris\u2019 benchmark, but the Australian wasn\u2019t overly concerned about his pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I got there pretty well on the medium, just the soft, didn’t get the most out of the grip on that first timed lap,\u201d he detailed. \u201cFinding my feet I think, but clearly some things to try and improve for tomorrow, but I think after just one session, not too bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he needed to make big changes or simply little tweaks ahead of FP3 and qualifying, Piastri said: \u201cI think it’s more just little details. The car feels like it’s in a pretty decent place. Again, just didn’t get the grip out of it in that first soft lap, so some small tweaks of course. It didn’t feel perfect out there, but nothing major.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as his pole chances are concerned, Piastri labelled them as \u201cpretty good\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the cars looked quick,\u201d he added. \u201cJust need to get some more laps under my belt and find my feet a bit more, that’s all. A few more laps tomorrow, a few more sets of tyres, hopefully we’ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 title contenders Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had a decent Friday at the Abu Dhabi Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[182715,64,63,184784,813,1737,913,806,805,803,804,2333,85,184783,169580],"class_list":["post-330237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abu-dhabi-gp","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-but-they-want-more-at-f1-abu-dhabi-gp","tag-formula-1","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports","tag-u201cnot-a-bad-dayu201d-for-norris-and-piastri","tag-yas-marina-circuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}