Oscar Piastri hopeful McLaren 'takes its turn' in jumbled Sepang pecking order

Oscar Piastri has explained his hope that McLaren could be the latest F1 team to "their turn" leading the pecking order at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

Throughout Friday practice in Sepang, the two sessions were topped by Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, respectively, with Mercedes also quick, particularly in the first session. 

Piastri's McLaren was sixth quickest in FP2, but the sister machine of Lando Norris was third best, 0.137s slower than the pace-setting Ferrari of the Monegasque.

This came after Piastri had been 11th, ahead of Norris in 12th, in FP1, with the MCL40 slow out of the starting blocks. 

Reacting after driving at Sepang for the first time, Piastri explained that he was hopeful McLaren could continue its "upward trend" and enjoy its "turn" at the head of the pecking order.

"I think it looks pretty close amongst the top four teams," Piastri reflected.

"I think Red Bull have looked very strong through the day. I think Mercedes as well looked stronger at points, and obviously Ferrari were pretty good [in FP2].

"So everyone's kind of had their turn at being reasonably competitive. I think we're maybe a tiny step behind, but we made a lot of progress from FP1, so hopefully we can keep that trend going, and we'll see where we end up. 

"We definitely looked better in FP2 than FP1. In FP1, we were struggling a lot, to be honest.

"Obviously, it was a bit of an interesting session [in FP2] because everyone was expecting rain, and then we didn't get it, so I think the tyre choices and things like that were a little bit different to normal. 

"But we seemed reasonable. I don't know what the long-run case was like, really, but it was an interesting first day."