{"id":460549,"date":"2026-03-06T10:35:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/460549\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:35:02","slug":"oscar-piastri-leads-fp2-as-aston-martins-woes-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/460549\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri leads FP2 as Aston Martin’s woes continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a> Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri<\/a> topped Free Practice 2 at the Australian Grand Prix, leading both Mercedes<\/a> cars.<\/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

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

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

New Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar<\/a> was six tenths slower than his team-mate; the pair was separated by reigning world champion Lando Norris<\/a> and 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>; 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

Photos from Australian GP – Friday<\/p>\n

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\"Oscar<\/p>\n


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We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri topped Free Practice 2 at the Australian Grand Prix, leading both Mercedes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[165533,163951,165532,165068,372,59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-460549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-apple_launch","9":"tag-australian-gp","10":"tag-f1-australian-gp-oscar-piastri-leads-fp2-as-aston-martins-woes-continue","11":"tag-f1-australian-grand-prix","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-gb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}