{"id":522342,"date":"2026-03-06T11:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/522342\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:03:11","slug":"piastri-leads-fp2-as-aston-martins-woes-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/522342\/","title":{"rendered":"Piastri leads FP2 as Aston Martin’s woes continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Oscar Piastri<\/a> topped second practice at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, leading both Mercedes<\/a> drivers, as Aston Martin\u2019s struggles continued.<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> set the pace in the first part of the session, with the frontrunners on hard tyres. The Ferrari<\/a> driver lapped in 1m20.637s, leading Piastri in 1m20.638s, Kimi Antonelli<\/a> in 1m20.801s, George Russell<\/a> in 1m20.984s and Charles Leclerc<\/a> in 1m21.478s.<\/p>\n

Mercedes then switched to soft rubber, with Russell setting a 1m20.049s, subsequently outpaced by Antonelli in 1m19.943s. Piastri then lapped in 1m19.729s, with the fastest first sector only, which ended up being the day\u2019s benchmark.<\/p>\n

The Ferraris took fourth and fifth, with Hamilton 0.001s off Russell and Leclerc a further 0.241s adrift.<\/p>\n

Russell experienced a turbulent session as he collided with Arvid Lindblad<\/a> in the pitlane, is being investigated for a practice start infringement, and had a trip through the gravel at Turn 3 \u2013 but so did the Ferrari drivers.<\/p>\n

Red Bull was 0.637s off the pace with Max Verstappen<\/a> setting a 1m20.366s before going wide at the exit of Turn 10; debris flew away from his RB22 as he ran over the gravel trap. This was a tricky session for the four-time title winner, who spent the first 25 minutes out of action after stopping at the end of the pitlane due to an apparent technical issue.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

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

New Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar<\/a> was six tenths slower than his team-mate; the pair separated by reigning world champion Lando Norris<\/a> and Arvid Lindblad, who led the midfield in 1m20.922s with Racing Bulls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Haas was the sixth-fastest team as Esteban Ocon<\/a> lapped in 1m21.179s; Nico Hulkenberg<\/a> gave Audi<\/a> a 1m21.351s.<\/p>\n

Williams<\/a> and Alpine<\/a> were significantly slower, then it was the usual suspects at the bottom of the standings.<\/p>\n

Cadillac was nearly four seconds off the pace with Valtteri Bottas<\/a>, while Sergio Perez<\/a> completed just two laps as a sensor issue kept him in the garage for most of the session. When the Mexican veteran finally went out, he had to stop on track with a suspected hydraulics issue.<\/p>\n

Aston Martin\u2019s now well-documented battery issues meant Fernando Alonso<\/a> and Lance Stroll<\/a> never covered more than eight laps consecutively; the Spaniard was faster, some five seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

F1 Australian GP – FP2 results<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri topped second practice at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, leading both Mercedes drivers, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[248047,27784,260436,813,43,202930,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-522342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-apple_launch","tag-australian-gp","tag-f1-australian-gp-piastri-leads-fp2-as-aston-martins-woes-continue","tag-formula-1","tag-headlines","tag-melbourne-grand-prix-circuit","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522342","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=522342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}