After suffering power issues that forced him to stop on track during the opening practice session of the day, the hometown favourite produced a strong lap of 1m19.729s on soft tyres midway through FP2 to edge the Mercedes pair of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell by two tenths of a second.

Piastri had shown flashes of speed earlier in the day, setting the fastest first sector time during FP1 before appearing to struggle through the remainder of the lap.

In the second session, however, he was able to string all three sectors together, delivering an encouraging response for McLaren after its mixed start to the weekend.

Antonelli finished second fastest, just one tenth ahead of teammate Russell, as Mercedes displayed the pace many expected from the pre-season favourites during the second practice session of the year.

Despite its speed, the session was not without drama for the German manufacturer, particularly for Russell, who was involved in two separate incidents.

At the start of the session the Briton clipped the Racing Bulls car of Arvid Lindblad as he exited the pitlane, damaging his front wing and forcing him to return to the pits for a replacement before continuing his run program.

Russell later ran into further trouble around the halfway point of the session, locking up and heading through the gravel at Turn 3 before re-joining the circuit without damage.

Ferrari, which had topped the opening session earlier in the day, finished fourth and fifth in FP2. Lewis Hamilton ended the session just 0.001s behind his former Mercedes teammate Russell, while Charles Leclerc was two tenths further back in fifth.

Leclerc had a brief scare late in the session, running wide into the gravel at Turn 3 before returning to the circuit unscathed.

Max Verstappen was another driver to encounter issues during the hour, eventually ending the session in sixth place.

The four-time world champion found himself stuck in gear at the end of the pit lane during the opening stages and was wheeled back into the Red Bull garage, where the team worked on the problem for much of the first half of the session.

Verstappen later returned to the track but had another moment late in the session at Turn 10, running wide with pieces of bodywork briefly seen coming off his Red Bull as he recovered and returned to the pits.

Lando Norris finished seventh for McLaren, with the reigning world champion finally able to complete some meaningful running after the gearbox checks that curtailed his FP1 session.

Norris logged 24 laps during FP2 but ended the session more than a second adrift of his teammate’s benchmark time, suggesting there may still be further pace to unlock in the McLaren package heading into the remainder of the weekend.

Arvid Lindblad once again impressed during his first race weekend as a full-time Formula 1 driver, backing up his fifth place finish in FP1 with another top-10 result.

The Briton ended the session eighth fastest, one spot ahead of the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, with Esteban Ocon rounding out the top ten for Haas.

Further down the order, Fernando Alonso finally completed his first laps of the 2026 season after initially appearing set to miss a second session of the day due to Aston Martin’s ongoing power unit concerns.

The Spaniard briefly ventured onto the track early in the session for a short run before returning to the pits, but later re-emerged and ultimately logged 14 laps as the team attempted to gather valuable data.

Despite the additional mileage, Aston Martin continued to struggle for pace, with Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll anchored to the bottom of the timesheets in 20th and 21st respectively, both more than five seconds adrift of Piastri’s benchmark time.

The only driver classified behind them was Cadillac’s Sergio Perez, with the Mexican spending much of the session in the garage dealing with a sensor issue before eventually returning to the track.

However, his run proved short-lived when he pulled off at Turn 11 during an attempted lap, bringing out a late Virtual Safety Car.

With the opening day of running under the new regulation era now complete, teams will turn their attention to analysing the wealth of data gathered from the two practice sessions.

Drivers will return to Albert Park tomorrow for the final practice session at 12:30pm AEDT ahead of qualifying later in the afternoon.