Formula 1
AustraliaSeason 2026
Oscar Piastri sent the home crowd into a frenzy by topping the timesheets in the second practice session for the 2026 Australian Grand Prix. After a relatively quiet FP1, the Australian found a "sweet spot" with the soft tire compound, clocking a 1:19.729 to edge out the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli by 0.214 seconds.
Piastri’s lap was a significant statement of intent for McLaren, especially as his teammate Lando Norris continued to struggle with intermittent clutch issues, finishing a distant seventh. The session was far from orderly, characterized by the "teething problems" typical of a new regulation era.
Max Verstappen suffered a frustrating start, stalling his Red Bull at the pit exit and losing twenty minutes to a software reset before eventually recovering to P6. Mercedes confirmed their status as genuine contenders, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton (now in Ferrari scarlet) finishing third and fourth respectively, separated by just one-thousandth of a second.
The biggest drama involved a terrifying near-miss on the main straight when Franco Colapinto's Alpine suddenly slowed, forcing Hamilton into a high-speed evasive maneuver. At the back of the grid, Aston Martin's nightmare continued; Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll propped up the bottom of the timing screens as the team admitted they were "blindsided" by power unit vibration issues from their new Honda partnership.