{"id":903884,"date":"2026-09-24T15:46:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T15:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903884\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T15:46:29","slug":"f1-news-2026-oscar-piastri-baku-grand-prix-comments-practice-one-and-two-results-highlights-video-george-russell-tops-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903884\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News 2026: Oscar Piastri Baku Grand Prix comments, practice one and two results, highlights, video, George Russell tops session"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri<\/a> managed to bounce back from early brake vibration issues to finish sixth in the first practice session on the track at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

It was a busy opening session in McLaren<\/a>\u2019s garage on Thursday, with both Piastri and Lando Norris<\/a> called in by engineers due to concerning internal reports. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri watches on after crashing out in the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Both drivers were able to return to the track before the session ended, with Piastri\u2019s team completing the necessary precautionary checks for brake vibrations. <\/p>\n

Norris, however, had entered the pit lane after his team discovered damage around the first floor of his car. He returned to finished 14th in practice. <\/p>\n

Mercedes\u2019 George Russell set the benchmark time for the upcoming race, while Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc clocked in second and third respectively. <\/p>\n

Prior to the session, Piastri admitted he has a love-hate relationship with the track in Azerbaijan. <\/p>\n

In 2024, the McLaren driver had the best weekend of his career and the following year slumped to his worst career weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cLove-hate in some ways,\u201d said Piastri of returning to Baku. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think probably my best race ever has been at this track \u2013 and probably my worst race ever has been at this track. So, always eventful.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Australian driver bagged his second grand prix victory on the streets of Baku after sailing past the Ferrari of Leclerc in the dying stages of the race. <\/p>\n

His win moved McLaren to the top of the constructors\u2019 championship table, where the team ultimately came out on top of Red Bull. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a big confidence track, and obviously, you need to push the limits a lot,\u201d Piastri continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite a rare combination of a street circuit with so many massive braking zones. So yeah, it\u2019s an interesting track, but hopefully this year is more like 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

The McLaren driver was well and truly wiped by his teammate in Madrid, reigning champ Norris running sometimes half a second quicker than the Aussie. <\/p>\n

It has fans harking back to Azerbaijan in 2025 as the shift in Piastri\u2019s career. The weekend ended with a crash in qualifying, a false start and then a lap one crash to put the nail in the coffin. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri speaking before the weekend, saying Baku is a \u2018love-hate\u2019 race for him. \u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe progress isn\u2019t linear. You\u2019re always going to find some things that work, go down some paths that don\u2019t work,\u201d Piastri said of his recent performance. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still very much kind of in that phase at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think last weekend in Madrid the car was quick eventually, but again very, very difficult to get the lap time out of it … but I feel like we\u2019re making progress and at least exploring different things. Some are working, some aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re not standing still, which is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri still feels \u201cwell-supported\u201d by his team as he continues to flounder in the 2026 car. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ve definitely felt that we\u2019re throwing everything we can at trying to improve, which has been good,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, there\u2019s only so many things you can do without just jumping in the car and trying stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s been a very good team response in trying to improve things as quickly as we can and feel like I\u2019m being well supported.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri managed to bounce back from early brake vibration issues to finish sixth in the first practice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-903884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903884","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=903884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}