Piastri “pretty happy” with McLaren’s strong start in Bahrain

Finishing Friday as the fastest man on track, Oscar Piastri offered encouraging signs for McLaren’s prospects in Bahrain, though the Australian remains measured, anticipating rivals will show their true pace in Qualifying.

It wasn’t a picture-perfect start to the Bahrain Grand Prix for the Australian, with Piastri among several drivers scrambling for grip as the opening laps of Free Practice 1 unfolded in scorching hot conditions.

Piastri initially found himself over a second adrift of his teammate’s pace, wrestling his McLaren through the final corner to stay within track limits before immediately reporting “zero grip” on the hard compound tyre.

Despite his grip-level woes, Piastri soon found his way into the comfort of the top three, five-tenths behind the benchmark-holding Lando Norris after 20 minutes of track action.

When Piastri made the switch to the soft compound, the Australian was on track to set the top time, however, another error at the final turn cost him crucial time and left him in P3. 

The #81 fell down the order as his competitors made the red-marked switch, sitting on the border of the top ten as the final few minutes ticked by before ultimately ending the first hour of practice in P10.

“I think we look decent, it’s just everyone is degrading a lot,” Piastri said.

“So, I think we just need to look into the details and see how we can make that a little bit nicer.

“I mean, it certainly wasn’t too bad so we’ll try and make it even better tomorrow, and yeah, just be good on both runs.”

Under race and qualifying representative conditions, Free Practice 2 was a far more comfortable hour of running from a McLaren point of view. 

The 24-year-old started his session with the hardest compound available, setting the fourth-fastest time straight out of the box. 

Launching for a second time, the Australian wrangled his MCL39 around the Bahrain International Circuit, setting personal bests through the first sector before losing out in the middle sector, prompting Piastri to abort the attempt. 

Returning to the track on the soft compound tyre, Piastri stole the fastest Sector 2 and 3 from his teammate, and eventually crossed the line to take the top spot as well with a time of 1:30.505s.

Sitting in P1, Piastri’s lap held strong as the fastest time of the session, prompting a switch to the hard compound tyre which ended shortly after a significant lock-up into the first corner. 

Piastri ended the session back on the C3, testing the grip limitations through to his practice start on the grid. 

“Pretty happy, to be honest,” Piastri said.

“I think the car felt like it was in a good place — FP1 was a very different story — so yeah, glad that everything came together a bit more.

“I think the one-lap pace looked strong and the longer running looked reasonable as well, so pretty happy with that.

“You know, obviously, still some things that we want to try and work on and make a bit nicer but, all in all, a good first day.”

Norris ended FP2 with the second fastest time to make it a McLaren 1-2 to round out Friday’s running, with the gap to the closest competitor sitting at over five-tenths.  

“I think for [the gap to everyone else] to be quite that big was a bit of a surprise, but I think the others will find a bit more tomorrow,” he said.

“I think it’ll be pretty close so it’s nice to have it now, but Bahrain is also a track that you can overtake on and tyre deg is a big, big factor so qualifying here — its still going to be important but I think we need to make sure we’ve got a good race car as well.”

The #4 echoed Piastri’s expectations of the gap closing across Saturday’s events, saying “I just don’t think they turned up”

“Everyone just looks at the timesheets, they have no idea about the information on who turns up, who doesn’t… it’s like three-and-a-half, four-tenths around here, so that puts us back in the same position as the Mercedes,” Norris said. 

Keeping a close eye on their competitors, both Norris and Piastri will have one final hour of practice to come to terms with the Bahrain International Circuit, admitting that much of their pre-season data has been rendered useless, with Norris noting they “came into this weekend with a lot of our information from the pre-season test, but it’s basically like throw all of that in the bin and just start again”.

Free Practice 3 will kick off at 22:30 AEST, followed by Qualifying at 02:00 AEST.

Image: Formula 1

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