![\"Lando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2307adfceaa647350140148ee5543b42e0795ba1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIt was the perfect boost for the Briton, who\u2019s 12 points ahead of Verstappen and 16 ahead of McLaren colleague Piastri, as the Dutch champion, second quickest on the day, still finished 0.363 slower than Norris in his Red Bull under the floodlights.<\/p>\n
Verstappen was also noted by stewards for impeding Norris in the first flashpoint of the weekend after the champion had been fed wrong information by his race engineer, but they decided not to investigate further.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lando Norris and members of the McLaren team in Abu Dhabi.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this guy doing? I almost crashed,\u201d Norris had been left exclaiming.<\/p>\n
For Piastri, desperate for the pace he had in Qatar last weekend when only McLaren\u2019s strategy blunder stopped him sweeping every session, it felt a stop-start day as, first, he spent the morning on the team\u2019s pitwall.<\/p>\n
While Norris led Verstappen by 0.008sec in another one-two, he gave up his seat to reserve Pato O\u2019Ward in a session designed largely for young prospects and development drivers.<\/p>\n
Piastri was doubtless itching to get out on track as his McLaren boss Zak Brown joked: \u201cThere\u2019s some guy that has taken my seat!\u201d<\/p>\n
Not much of a laughing matter for Piastri, though, as he started on the back foot in the second session, more representative of what they\u2019ll all face on Sunday.<\/p>\n
He locked up on his quickest lap and couldn\u2019t get near Norris\u2019s fastest, with Brown noting: \u201cOscar is not totally dialled in yet but he will get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri certainly didn\u2019t seem concerned, appearing his usual unflappable self as he told reporters: \u201cFinding my feet. Clearly, some things to try and improve for tomorrow, but after just one session, not too bad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more just little details, the car feels like it\u2019s in a pretty decent place, but just didn\u2019t get the grip out of it on that first soft lap. So some small tweaks for tomorrow, of course. It didn\u2019t feel perfect out there, but nothing major.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris didn\u2019t evidently want to get too high himself so early in the week, saying: \u201cObviously, from the times, things look good at the minute, but I still want a bit more from the car. I\u2019m not completely happy, or completely confident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know it gets a lot closer going into quali. So nothing to smile about just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen had more than a few grumbles about the Friday set-up of his Red Bull, complaining in the morning that \u201csomething is broken on the car\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked what the main areas of issue were by his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, he replied: \u201cIt is everywhere now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
Mercedes\u2019 George Russell, who could play a key role yet in Sunday\u2019s race, was third quickest in second practice.<\/p>\n
Brown elaborated on the prospect that McLaren might yet employ team orders in the race.<\/p>\n
Brown admitted: \u201cIf, as the race develops, it becomes clear one of our drivers has a significantly better chance than the other, then we\u2019re a team that wants to win the drivers\u2019 championship and we will race accordingly, to do whatever we can to get that driver in front to try and win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say what sort of chance would qualify as \u201csignificantly better,\u201d but indicated team orders would only come into play if \u201cit becomes clear that both (Norris and Piastri) can\u2019t\u201d win.<\/p>\n
Asked if he believed Piastri would agree to any order to help out Norris, Brown said: \u201cYes. Our drivers have always complied with team wishes, just as we comply with their wishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no doubt either of our drivers will continue to race as they\u2019ve done brilliantly, in the best interest of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the perfect boost for the Briton, who\u2019s 12 points ahead of Verstappen and 16 ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-330872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330872","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=330872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}