Oscar Piastri stuns Mercedes in major Japan second practice McLaren boost

Oscar Piastri stunned Mercedes to top the timesheets in second practice ahead of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, representing a major boost for McLaren.

Mercedes has dominated the opening two rounds, with Ferrari a comfortable second in the pecking order, but McLaren has entered the conversation at Suzuka.

Piastri set a 1m 30.133s lap to go quickest in second practice, putting him 0.092s clear of Shanghai winner Kimi Antonelli. Championship leader George Russell was third, just over two-tenths adrift.

Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc completed the top five, although the former endured a heavily disrupted session after missing the opening 25 minutes.

How the session unfolded

The start of second practice saw the bulk of the field immediately head out on track, including Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who missed media day and first practice due to the reported birth of his first child.

Across the opening 25 minutes, Alonso was the only driver to use soft tyres, with the majority running medium or hard compounds to gather long-run data.

Long-run data was not on the agenda for Arvid Lindblad, who was forced to box 10 minutes into the session after suffering an apparent gearbox issue. It marked the end of his session.

The rookie at least exited the garage at the start of second practice, unlike Lando Norris, Sergio Perez and Gabriel Bortoleto.

Norris’ track action was delayed by McLaren investigating a hydraulic leak, while Audi was looking into a power unit and gearbox issue on Bortoleto’s car. As for Perez, his delayed start to second practice was due to repairs following a first practice clash with Alex Albon.

Albon was again a topic of conversation 12 minutes into second practice after grinding to a halt due to a loss of throttle, before mysteriously getting going again.

On the subject of getting going, Norris did eventually leave the McLaren garage with just over half of the session remaining, as did Perez. Bortoleto exited the Audi garage with 10 minutes to go.

As for the on-track action, Charles Leclerc was fastest before the soft tyres were fitted. The Ferrari driver set a 1m 31.019s lap on the medium compound, ahead of Oscar Piastri, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. All four were covered by just 0.155s.

However, it was all change once the red-walled soft tyres were fitted, with half the session remaining for a brief qualifying simulation.

Piastri went to the top of the timesheets with a 1m 30.133s lap, almost one-tenth clear of Antonelli. Russell, Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton completed the top five, although the latter was eight-tenths adrift.

Almost 1.4s slower than Piastri’s lap was Max Verstappen, whose soft tyre running was impacted by a slow-moving Franco Colapinto at 130R. Colapinto impeded Max Verstappen and is set to be investigated after second practice for driving erratically.

Long-run simulations resumed after the soft tyre runs, resulting in little change to the order. The big mover was Norris, who completed a late soft tyre run to go fourth, demoting Leclerc and Hamilton to fifth and sixth.

Nico Hülkenberg, Alex Albon, Oliver Bearman and Verstappen completed the top 10.