McLaren remains ahead with Piastri topping FP2 in Barcelona

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri was fastest in Friday’s second practice session at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

The championship leader set his benchmark halfway through the one-hour contest to grab the lead from Mercedes driver George Russell.

At the start of the session, Piastri’s team-mate Lando Norris picked up where he left off by immediately dipping below his FP1 leading time with a 1m13.636s on mediums.

Norris led the early running ahead of Max Verstappen and Piastri, until Russell upped the pace after 15 minutes with a 1m13.501s.

The Briton went faster still after he put on Pirelli’s softest compound and clocked a 1m13.046s after 23 minutes, followed by his rookie team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli a quarter of a second behind.

Verstappen and Norris set identical lap times just 0.024s behind Russell, until Piastri took over command at the halfway mark.

The Australian’s soft-tyre lap of 1m12.760s remained at the top of the leaderboard throughout the session as teams switched focus to long runs.

Piastri led the session 0.286s clear of Russell and 0.310s ahead of both Verstappen and Norris, who were tied for third, while Charles Leclerc was fifth for Ferrari after demoting Antonelli.

Fernando Alonso was an encouraging seventh in front of his home fans for Aston Martin, followed by Alpine man Pierre Gasly. Racing Bulls duo Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson rounded out the top 10.

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman suffered the only incident of note, as he spun into the gravel early on at Turn 3, and needed his car repairing in the team garage. The Briton ended FP2 19th, only quicker than Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

The track sessions will return at 11:30 local time on Saturday morning for final practice, ahead of qualifying three and a half hours later. 

F1 Spanish GP – FP2 results