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<\/p>\nAs China was a sprint weekend, Friday at the Japanese Grand Prix was only the second full Friday of practice the teams have had with the 2026 Formula 1 cars.<\/p>\n
With the caveat that it’s ‘only practice’, here are the early winners and losers emerging from the first day of on-track action.<\/p>\n
Loser: Red Bull<\/p>\n
Red Bull spent the Chinese GP weekend stuck in the midfield fight, and there\u2019s no evidence so far to suggest Suzuka will be much different.<\/p>\n
The midfield fight in FP2
7 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) +1.308s
8 Alex Albon (Williams) +1.363s
9 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1.365s
10 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +1.376s
11 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.399s
12 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1.457s
13 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +1.475s
14 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.601s
15 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) +1.626s<\/p>\n
Verstappen says Red Bull was \u201cjust lacking balance, grip\u201d despite trying \u201ctwo opposites from FP1 to FP2 and both of them not very good\u201d.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t expecting overnight \u201cmiracles\u201d, as even though Red Bull has a strong history of turning miserable Fridays into great Saturdays, it hasn\u2019t proved it can do that turnaround with the RB22 yet. – Josh Suttill<\/p>\n
Winner: McLaren<\/p>\n
McLaren badly needs a strong weekend after a tough opening couple of events, and it\u2019s started Suzuka in good shape performance-wise, with Oscar Piastri edging ahead of the Mercedes duo on the leaderboard in second practice.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s far too early to declare that McLaren\u2019s suddenly a match for Mercedes. After all, Piastri also topped FP2 in Melbourne before Mercedes blew it away in qualifying. And we\u2019re expecting Mercedes to do the same here.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the margin McLaren has over the third-best team (Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc was over seven tenths back), which is the most encouraging for McLaren\u2019s podium hopes, even if Ferrari looks stronger over a race distance – JS<\/p>\n
Loser: Lando Norris<\/p>\n
The main downside of McLaren\u2019s day was its reigning world champion Lando Norris losing a chunk of second practice to a suspected hydraulic leak, further highlighting McLaren\u2019s vulnerable reliability.<\/p>\n
He was understandably downbeat after FP2, saying: \u201cEven FP1, the first part of it was aero running so, even the few laps that I did get was not that representative for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have data to look at and things, but around a track like this, you just want laps – I don\u2019t care what data I can look at, you just want laps under your belt to give you some confidence and good knowledge\u2026 which I got some of at the end but just two or three steps behind at the minute with set-up, with no long running.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty terrible start to the weekend. We\u2019ve got the night to reset and try and fix some things.\u201d – JS<\/p>\n
Loser: Ferrari<\/p>\n
Ferrari looked in good shape on the medium tyre, with Charles Leclerc leading Piastri and both Mercedes on that compound, but when the soft tyres went on, the laptime simply didn\u2019t come – for either red car.<\/p>\n
Leclerc had some lurid moments, through the Esses in particular; Lewis Hamilton similarly struggled to put three clean sectors together. But it\u2019s not only about car balance. Hamilton suggested Ferrari was losing four tenths to McLaren simply on the run to Turn 1, so the way the car is harvesting and deploying its electrical energy probably also needs work.<\/p>\n
Given how disrupted Norris was in FP2, there\u2019s no way he should be jumping ahead of both Ferraris after just two short performance runs on two different tyre compounds, even with a chunk of track improvement. The cars around them were finding almost a second between compounds; the fact Leclerc found nothing more than two tenths medium to soft tells you Ferrari underperformed in FP2. – Ben Anderson<\/p>\n
Loser: Arvid Lindblad<\/p>\n
Suzuka is always a steep learning curve for rookies, so Arvid Lindblad missing all but one lap in FP2 is a huge loss for F1\u2019s newest driver.<\/p>\n
Especially when you consider Lindblad\u2019s second F1 weekend in China was a lot tougher than his first, partly explained by his practice problems there.<\/p>\n
He at least had another practice session here at Suzuka where he bagged 29 laps and was 10th, unlike China, which had just one practice session as part of the sprint weekend. But it\u2019s still compromised Lindblad, who on Thursday admitted to being surprised by just how tight Suzuka is in real life.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, the biggest thing was just, it’s a lot tighter and narrower than you think. When you do it on the sim, it looks quite wide and you’re going quite fast through it, so you think it’s quite…it’s not that tight because you’re going through it at like 220km\/h, 250km\/h. But then you see it on track and you’re like ‘Wow, that’s actually quite tight’,\u201d Lindblad said. – JS<\/p>\n
Loser: Audi<\/p>\n
On the one hand, Audi is an easy winner as it led the congested midfield – or let\u2019s say, was best of the rest behind McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari – in FP2 with Nico Hulkenberg.<\/p>\n
But it was another story on the other side of the garage as Gabriel Bortoleto only got his first proper laps in with just under 10 minutes to go in FP2.<\/p>\n
That was because of a delay for a precautionary gearbox change, and it robbed Bortoleto of a significant amount of running as Hulkenberg notched up 27 laps to Bortoleto\u2019s 11.<\/p>\n
Bortoleto did jump to 16th with a late push-lap on the soft tyres.<\/p>\n
Encouraging speed from Hulkenberg, but replicating that in competitive sessions is another thing – even he pointed to the midfield being closer together than the first two races plus lots of technical issues for others in FP2 – and that won\u2019t matter anyway if the car isn\u2019t reliable.<\/p>\n
But the team is confident Bortoleto can rebound, and the gearbox change was at least precautionary. – Jack Benyon<\/p>\n
Winner: Williams ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/XPB_1403539_HiRes.jpg\")
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