with Norris climbing to third in FP2 while Piastri finished sixth<\/a>, 0.371s away from Charles Leclerc\u2019s session-topping Ferrari.<\/p>\nPiastri said the difference between the two sessions had been noticeable after an opening hour in which the team found itself outside the top 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely looked better in FP2 than FP1. FP1 we were struggling a lot. So things seemed a bit more positive then,\u201d Piastri told Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s second session was complicated by the expectation of rain at Sepang, which prompted teams to alter their usual programs before the forecast weather ultimately failed to arrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit of an interesting session because everyone was expecting rain, and then we didn\u2019t get it. So I think the tyres choices and things like that were a little bit different to normal,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we seemed reasonable. I don\u2019t know what the long run pace was like really, but no, interesting first day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri\u2019s best FP2 lap left him just over two tenths behind Norris, while McLaren was much closer to the front than it had been earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
Leclerc led Isack Hadjar by 0.099s, with Norris another 0.038s back in third.<\/p>\n
Verstappen finished fourth despite not completing a qualifying simulation on soft tyres, while Lewis Hamilton split the Red Bull driver and Piastri in fifth.<\/p>\n
The spread across the leading teams left Piastri expecting a close fight when qualifying arrives, although he suggested McLaren still has some ground to find.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it looks pretty close amongst the top four teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Red Bull have looked very strong through the day. I think Mercedes as well looked strong at points, and obviously Ferrari were pretty good then.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo everyone\u2019s kind of had their turn being reasonably competitive. I think we\u2019re maybe a tiny step behind. But we made a lot of progress from FP1.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hopefully we can keep that trend going and we\u2019ll see where we end up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercedes\u2019 final FP2 positions offered an incomplete picture after both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli made mistakes during their respective soft-tyre qualifying runs, while Verstappen\u2019s fourth-place time came on the medium compound.<\/p>\n
Piastri was also asked about McLaren\u2019s rear-wing comparison work after the team ran different specifications during the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a concern. It\u2019s more that after Baku where we don\u2019t have very many of them. So it was all fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McLaren will have one final practice session on Saturday to continue closing the gap before qualifying at Sepang.<\/p>\n
2026 F1 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia \u2013 Schedule, TV times & more<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri is hopeful McLaren can continue to make gains in Sepang. Image: XPB Images The Australian endured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,260773,913,806,805,803,804,2333,12357,85],"class_list":["post-913477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahrain-gp","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913477","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=913477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Piastri](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/XPB_1440810_HiRes.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOscar Piastri is hopeful McLaren can continue to make gains in Sepang. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n