Oscar Piastri ended the day in better shape as he got to grips with a “tricky” Marina Bay circuit ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix.
The Australian was 19th best after the opening hour of running, more than two seconds off the outright pace.
He reduced that to 1.3 seconds in Free Practice 2 as he ended the day 15th best, eight-tenths down on his McLaren team-mate, Lando Norris.
“It’s a tricky circuit, definitely,” the Australian began.
“Tight, twisty, bumpy. Interesting first day. I learned a lot.
” Think we’ve got a bit of work to do on the car as well, but still a lot to try and learn in how to get the most out of this track. But yeah, learning all the time and hopefully we can find a bit more speed for tomorrow.”
McLaren has introduced upgrades for this weekend in Singapore, though those are fitted only to Norris’ car, with Piastri due to get them next weekend.
The different packages offer the team a baseline for comparison between the two cars, and packages, though still provides a reference for its rookie pilot.
“The biggest thing at the moment is still just driving and really getting the most out of myself, getting more used to the track,” Piastri said.
“It’s difficult around here, so I think that’s the biggest thing.
“It is still a reference,” he added of Piastri.
“It’s not a completely different category of car, so it’s still useful to have Lando as a reference but of course, there’s a little bit of a built-in gap.
“But I’ll try my best, try and keep learning, that’s what I’ve got to focus on at the moment and hopefully we can set it up for a decent weekend.”
Piastri’s best of 1:33.461s saw him four-tenths out of the top 10, and embroiled in a group of cars from Valtteri Bottas in 10th to Zhou Guanyu in 17th that were covered by half a second.
“It felt like it was close out there,” Piastri admitted.
“We were probably on the back end of the closeness in that one – we find a couple of tenths ad we could be a lot further up.
“We’ll see what we can do for tomorrow. It’s very close.
“I think there’s going to be mistakes; it’s hard to do a clean lap around here. I think getting the most out of your driving is the most important thing at the moment.”
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