The Mercedes-powered cars turned up the pace in FP2 at the Australian Grand Prix: Oscar Piastri set the fastest time of 1:19.729, ahead of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. The first Ferrari was Lewis Hamilton, over three-tenths behind the Australian, while Charles Leclerc trailed by more than half a second. Max Verstappen and Lando Norris completed fewer laps, finishing sixth and seventh respectively. Arvid Lindblad delivered another strong performance in eighth, ahead of Isack Hadjar and Esteban Ocon, who rounded out the top ten.
FP2: Piastri leads with Mercedes close behind, Ferrari and Red Bull lag
After an active FP1 morning, it was time for the second free practice session in Melbourne, the final session of the first official Friday. Morning times were spread out, signaling that many teams were still holding back their full potential, especially regarding energy management. By 16:00 local time, however, when FP2 began, competitiveness rose and some teams conducted more realistic race pace simulations. Air and track temperatures were 22°C and 32°C respectively.
The first cars on track were the two Audis. Ferrari began its program on hard tires on both cars, as did McLaren and Mercedes, while Red Bull with Hadjar initially ran medium tires. The two Silver Arrows temporarily led, with Russell and Antonelli posting 1:21.300, ahead of Lewis Hamilton by about two-tenths. Hamilton improved shortly after, going under 1:21 and edging ahead of Russell by less than a tenth after Russell had posted the best first two sectors but did not improve in the final sector.
The promising Audi performance from FP1 was confirmed: Hülkenberg was temporarily seventh, while Bortoleto held tenth. Kimi Antonelli completed his second flying lap and set a new benchmark of 1:20.801, faster than his FP1 best. McLaren responded with Piastri, who pushed to 1:20.638. Lando Norris, meanwhile, was only just beginning his first real flying lap after completing three laps in the first fifteen minutes and seven in the morning session.
Some teams experienced delays, including Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez (sensor issue), and the two Aston Martins, which had not yet gone out in this phase. Russell switched to soft tires first, lowering Piastri’s benchmark by nearly six-tenths to set the fastest time of the day. His teammate Antonelli slotted in just behind, less than two-tenths adrift, also on soft tires. Hamilton performed well on used hard tires, taking third. Stroll set his first time on C5, over seven seconds off the pace. Antonelli then delivered a great lap, becoming the first driver to break the 1:20 barrier with a 1:19.943, while Russell had an excursion into the gravel at Turn 3. Verstappen finally went out mid-session on medium tires. Both Ferraris switched to red tires: Hamilton climbed to third, nearly two-tenths behind Antonelli, while Leclerc trailed by more than four-tenths and hadn’t improved on his FP1 time.
Piastri significantly raised the pace and took the lead with 1:19.729. Charles Leclerc improved slightly but remained fifth. Verstappen moved up to sixth on C5, just behind the Monegasque. Norris spent most of the session in the pits. Rookie Lindblad set a great lap in eighth, ahead of Isack Hadjar. Norris attempted his flying lap but only managed seventh, a second behind Piastri. No one else improved on used C5s, so teams turned to long runs.
Ferrari and Mercedes ran their long runs on hard tires, Verstappen on yellow, suffering a high-speed off-track incident at Turn 10 that damaged the floor of his RB22. The two McLarens ran their simulation on red tires. Five minutes from the end, Sergio Perez stopped on the final part of the track, triggering the first VSC of FP2. The top ten concluded as: Piastri, Antonelli (+0.214s), Russell, Hamilton, Leclerc, Verstappen, Norris, Lindblad, Hadjar, Ocon.
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