The Australian topped the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix with a 1m30.133s lap, offering a rare highlight in what has been a difficult start to his 2026 season.
After failing to start the opening two races in Australia and China, Piastri is now focused on converting Friday’s encouraging signs into a clean first race weekend of the year.
Despite finishing the day at the head of the timesheets, Piastri suggested the emphasis remained on learning rather than reading too much into the headline result.
“Overall, it was a decent day for us,” he said.
“We felt like we made some good progress, particularly in the second Practice session, which was encouraging.
“The feeling is positive, and we’ve gathered some valuable data that puts us in a solid position.”
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McLaren used Friday largely as an experimental day, running aerodynamic rake configurations on both cars as the team continued to build a clearer picture of the MCL40’s performance under the new 2026 regulations.
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Piastri said the work completed through both sessions had left him satisfied with the direction the team was heading, even if he acknowledged that some rivals still appear to hold the upper hand.
“We know there’s still work to do, and it’s clear that some of our competitors, especially Mercedes, are very strong,” he explained.
“However, the focus is on our own performance. We hope to build on the progress from today and carry that momentum forward to be even more competitive.”
McLaren senior director of racing Randy Singh echoed that cautious optimism, praising the team’s efforts to maximise running despite complications on the other side of the garage.
“We made the most of our opportunities today despite a challenging start,” Singh said.
“After FP1, the team did a fantastic job to manage a hydraulic issue on Lando’s car and ensure we still gathered valuable data from the session.”
Singh said Piastri’s pace was encouraging but stressed that the team did not believe the broader competitive order had changed significantly since the last race.
“Seeing Oscar finish P1 is always encouraging, and it shows we are working hard to extract the maximum from the package, but we remain realistic,” he said.
While Piastri enjoyed a productive afternoon, teammate and reigning world champion Lando Norris endured a far more disrupted day.
A hydraulic concern limited his early running in second practice, forcing the team to carefully manage the car across the session before he eventually returned to the track.
“Tricky day, we didn’t get the laps we needed,” Norris explained.
“Early in FP2 we couldn’t do much more than one lap at a time, and a lot of the morning was aero work, so the running we did manage wasn’t really representative.”
Norris eventually climbed to fourth on the timesheets but admitted the lack of consecutive running left the team with more work to do overnight.
“Around a track like this, you just want laps to build confidence and refine the setup, and right now we’re two or three steps behind with no long runs and very limited consecutive running,” he said.
“With that said, we pulled a few things together at the end and learned a bit, even if it wasn’t as much as we’d have liked.
“We’ll use the night to reset, go through the data we have, and try to fix some things so we can get meaningful laps on the board and get back on track tomorrow.”
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