Friday Report - McLaren 1-2

Lando Norris
© McLaren

Friday couldn’t have gone better for McLaren as the team’s first Constructors’ title since 1998 (!) seems to be well within their grasp. After seeing Charles Leclerc handed a guaranteed 10-places grid penalty during the FP1 session, the British team completely dominated procedures in FP2, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri leading the time sheets by an impressive margin, The British driver was 0,582s faster than Carlos Sainz, the quickest of the two Ferrari, making most of his gap in the final, twisty, sector. Running a higher downforce rear wing than its rival, McLaren was able to still have enough top speed to be at Ferrari’s level in Sector 2 and then had more downforce for the final sector, gaining almost half a second there. Once again Norris seems to have the measure of Piastri as he was 0,234s faster than his team mate but, in fairness, the Australian may have damaged his tyres a bit at the end of his first quick lap on the Softs as he had a big moment coming into the final corner.

For Ferrari the session was all about gathering data and preparing Leclerc’s car to be quick down the straights while keeping good tyre life, as the Monegasque knows he’ll start from the second half of the grid, needs to have a car capable of overtaking while keeping its tyres alive to have free track once those in front of him head for the pits in the race. Sainz did a good recovery job, having sat FP1 out ad was third quickest, while his team mate was down in P6, just 0,1s behind the Spaniard.

The two were split by future Ferrari driver lewis Hamilton, always extremely competitive in this track, as the veteran seems determined to leave Mercedes on a high after 12 largely successful seasons. His gap to Russell was even bigger than in FP1 and his long runs were also better than his team mate’s. His strength remains heavy braking as it’s in Sector 2 he opens a gap to Russell, who complained of poor rear end grip when running with the Soft tyres.

Red Bull has, again, a lot of work to do overnight. World Champion Max Verstappen was down in P17, complaining the entire session he had no grip on the front axles, a problem that was exacerbated once he put the Soft tyres on. Pérez was also unhappy with the balance of his car but was marginally faster than his team mate, in P14 but both were over one second slower than Norris. As usual Honda has their engines more turned down than any other manufacturer on Friday’s practice, but, still, the team has another mountain to climb overnight, something they did very efficiently one week ago in Qatar.

Nico Hulkenberg was the surprise guest at the front of the field, as he hauled his Haas VF-24 up to P3, ahead of both Ferrari and Hamilton’s Mercedes. GPS data suggests the German and team mate Kevin Magnussen (8th quickest), were running lighter on fuel than its direct rivals but, still, the American car seemed to be extremely well balanced and keeping its tyres alive for the last sector, which could prove valuable if everyone sticks to a one-stop strategy on Sunday.

Alex Albon (9th) and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten but the session was a difficult one for Williams. The Thai was briefly stopped after feeling loss of power coming out of the hairpin while doing his long run but team mate Franco Colapinto sat out the last 35 minutes of the session after damaging the only floor the team has available for him this weekend after running wide in Turn 11. For Tsunoda his first runs of the weekend were positive ones and he was also marginally quicker than Lawson, even though the Kiwi had completed two sessions against his single one.