“Decent” day puts Piastri in the mix for Jeddah

Oscar Piastri called his opening day in Jeddah “decent,” but his back-to-back top-five finishes in practice suggest the McLaren driver is quietly building momentum ahead of Qualifying.

The opening hour of practice at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was a positive one for Piastri despite a few minor complications impacting him in the cockpit.

Following on from last weekend’s race, Piastri instantly detected another issue with his drinks system, this time with water leaking into his helmet as he lapped the fast-paced Jeddah Corniche Circuit. 

Combatting the ‘refreshing’ burst of water up top, his seat gradually started to overheat in the already hot conditions, sending heat all the way up his back as the session came to a close, however, the Australian completed FP1 without a fuss.

His first appearance around the 6.1km handed the Australian an early benchmark of 1:31.548s, but as time went on, Piastri trailed down the order before launching again, reclaiming the fastest first sector on his way to discover an additional second of pace.

It wasn’t his cleanest start to FP1, however, with the #81 soon retreating to the McLaren garage after reporting to his team that he had made slight contact right-hand with the walls.

Back up and running after spending a decent chunk of the first 30 minutes in the garage, Piastri returned to the track on the soft compound tyre.

Instantly running three-tenths up in the first sector, the Australian lost a bit of time in the middle sector before clocking a time of 1:29.708s—a lap that left him four-tenths behind his teammate’s revised benchmark.

On his next red-marked run, Piastri’s flying final sector allowed him to come within two-tenths of Lando Norris, an interval that he halved on his following attempt.

Sitting one-tenth behind the fastest time of the session, Piastri couldn’t improve on his fastest time of 1:29.341s, instead concluding the session on the humble yellow-marked tyre as he alerted his team of his overheating seat.

“It was a decent day,” Piastri said.

“I think the pace has been good and I’ve felt reasonably comfortable—there’s been a few corners that I need to try and do a bit of a better job at tomorrow.

“But no, all in all, it’s felt like a good day.

“So I think the pace has been good—still some things to iron out, it’s not been perfect, but no, still feeling good.”

Under qualifying and race representative conditions in FP2, the Australian wasn’t able to match Lando Norris’ initial attempt, crossing the line over a second slower than his McLaren teammate before settling into P4.

Launching again, Piastri made some major improvements across the lap to sit just one millisecond behind his teammate, before outpacing him on his next tour of the 27 corners and slotting into the top spot. 

Reclaiming P1 as he started his soft tyre runs, Piastri set a new benchmark of 1:28.430s, over a tenth clear of Max Verstappen as he started a necessary double cooldown lap.

Whilst doing so, Norris got the jump on the #81, edging ahead by just nine-hundredths of a second.

To end his low-fuel run, Piastri had a scrappy final lap that saw him alerting his team of contact with the wall for the second time on Friday, prompting a return to the pitlane. 

Getting the all-clear, the Australian rejoined the final moments of FP2 on the medium compound, lapping as the second-fastest driver before a late Red Flag brought the session to an end.

“I think the pace in the car is good,” he said.

“I’ve been feeling pretty good, I think there’s still—like I said—some things to improve for tomorrow, a bit more pace to find but not, so far everything has been going reasonably well.

“So yeah, fairly confident for tomorrow.”

The Australian will have one more practice session before taking on the all-important Qualifying session on Sunday morning, with FP3 kicking off at 23:30 AEST.

Image: McLaren

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