Friday Report - Piastri leads McLaren 1-2

Oscar Piastri
© McLaren

McLaren signaled strong early pace at the Bahrain Grand Prix, locking out the top two positions in Free Practice 2 as Oscar Piastri led team-mate Lando Norris under the lights.

In more representative evening conditions after a hot and inconclusive FP1, teams turned to qualifying simulations. Piastri delivered a sharp lap of 1m30.505s on soft tyres, edging Norris by 0.154s to head the timesheets in the hour-long session. George Russell placed third for Mercedes, but was over half a second behind the lead McLaren, suggesting the team holds a clear early advantage.

The session wasn't without drama. Fernando Alonso was forced to pit early after needing to reattach his steering wheel mid-run in his Aston Martin. Meanwhile, Russell topped the order early on, before the frontrunners began their low-fuel, soft-tyre runs.

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen briefly went fastest around the halfway mark, but was soon overtaken by both McLaren drivers. Red Bull, often conservative in engine performance during practice, ended the session with Verstappen seventh and Yuki Tsunoda down in 18th.

Charles Leclerc slotted into fourth for Ferrari with a time of 1m31.054s, while rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli impressed again by taking fifth in the second Mercedes. Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar carried momentum from his point-scoring finish in Japan to place sixth, ahead of Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, who was eighth for Ferrari.

Oliver Bearman continued to turn heads with another solid performance for Haas, placing ninth, while Carlos Sainz rounded out the top 10 in the Williams.

With temperatures dropping into the evening and grip improving across the session, teams will now turn their focus to long-run performance and race setup ahead of Saturday's qualifying. But the headline from Friday night was clear: McLaren is very much in the mix at the front.