Oscar Piastri dominated Friday’s Australian GP

The Australian was the fastest of the second session and of the day in Melbourne, where the first round of Formula 1 takes place. Behind him were the Mercedes and Ferrari duo. Max Verstappen had problems and finished sixth.

Mercedes-Benz engines just appeared. After the first practice session in which the German power units were conspicuous by their absence and Oscar Piastri’s sixth place with his McLaren had been the best, in the second test of the Australian GP, first date of the F1 season, the table turned and the German drivers completed the 1-2-3, led by the Australian, who clocked 1m19s729 to take the best in front of his audience.

Piastri was the face of the Constructors’ champion team. Lando Norris, the monarch who overthrew Max Verstappen in 2025, barely turned in the first session and, with the work lost, he could not complete the intended program and was only seventh, 1s065 behind his teammate. The Englishman will have to make up for the time lost in the third round before qualifying.

Behind Piastri were the two cars from the full Mercedes team, with Kimi Antonelli second and George Russell third. And the two Ferraris got in behind. The Italian team had scored 1-2 in the first round and finished fourth and fifth, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Charles Leclerc. The Rossa power unit continues to demonstrate, as it did in the preseason, that it is ready to fight with those equipped with Mercedes. Although Russell and Antonelli’s race pace scared everyone.

Max Verstappen had a problem at the start of the second round and returned to the pits pushed by the Red Bull mechanics. After missing half a session, the Dutchman went out and completed just a dozen laps to finish sixth.

This Saturday, at dawn in Latin America, the classification will be held. One of the main challenges for the teams will be to avoid the reliability problems that several suffered (McLaren, Red Bull, Aston Martin, Cadillac). In qualifying no one will hide anything anymore and there will be a sample of the reality that each team has in store.