26 June 2026 18:30 (UTC)
"There's work to do, but the signs are positive"
Red Bull Ring Friday, 26 June
Find out what happened during FP1 and FP2 in Austria and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Technical Director – Applied Engineering, Neil Houldey.
Friday in Austria saw the team overcome early frustrations to set competitive times later in the day, while gathering a great deal of data for overnight analysis and longer-term development.
Free Practice 1 was a trying session with Lando unable to leave the garage in the opening 45 minutes, while the crew tracked down and repaired a hydraulic leak that became apparent shortly before the session start. He managed a short run on the Medium tyre, which put him into P7, but was unable to set a lap on the Soft, with his run being curtailed by a late Red Flag that also saw grid launch practice cancelled.
With the Number 1 car’s limited running, this left the bulk of the programme in Oscar’s hands. The Australian driver started the session with saddle rakes fitted over the engine cover, and did a sequence of constant speed limit tests, testing different front wings over single-lap runs. When the rakes came off midway through the session, he demonstrated good pace on the Used Medium tyre, and ended the session P3 after a short run on the Soft, before switching back to the Medium for continuous laps at the end of the session.
Given the number of FP1 rookies appearing in the session, and the number of teams with substantial upgrades to understand, the lap times weren’t given huge credence in terms of the true competitive position.
The team's experimental rear wing did not run today after it became clear that further preparation work is required. The test item will now return to Woking for continued development and preparation ahead of future evaluation - such is the nature of experimental parts.
The second Friday session was much smoother, with both drivers again running Medium and Soft sets. With track temperatures hitting 50°C, they initially went to the top of the standings, before a long VSC interrupted proceedings.
The Quali-sim on the Soft tyre was much the same, with Oscar bested by Kimi Antonelli – albeit by a sizeable margin. Having struggled a little with his braking in FP1, Oscar professed himself happier after tweaks to his pedal box set-up for FP2. The session ended with both drivers completing high-fuel runs, and two practice launches from the grid.
Overall, despite losing laps in FP1, the team had a reasonable first day in Austria. A vast amount of data gathered puts us in good shape heading into the weekend, but will also be useful for the future development of the MCL40.
Elsewhere at the Spielberg circuit, McLaren Driver Development’s Matteo De Palo qualified in P22 after ending Free Practice in P16 during the FIA Formula 3 event.
FP1 | 1m07.913s (+0.117s) | 26 laps | 3rd |
FP2 | 1m07.251s (+0.237s) | 32 laps | 2nd |
“We had a pretty good day finishing well in both sessions. We knew Mercedes would be a step ahead, and that’s how it played out, but it was productive for us. We worked through a lot of setup items and got through some homework carried over from Spain. We did a good job trialling different approaches and understanding the car better.
“Looking ahead to tomorrow, there are definitely areas where we can learn overnight to help close the gap, but I am feeling more comfortable, and I’m happy with how today has gone. We’ll focus on incremental gains and see where that gets us.”
FP1 | 1m08.873s (+1.077s) | 9 laps | 7th |
FP2 | 1m07.339s (+0.325s) | 32 laps | 3rd |
“An issue in Free Practice 1 put us on the back foot, but once that was resolved we started to make some progress as the sessions went on today. From a pace point of view, we’ve had a reasonable day, and we’re a bit closer to the cars ahead, which is encouraging.
“This track seems to suit us as we’ve seen in the last few years, and that’s a good trend for the weekend ahead. The priority now is to build a little more confidence in the car, and if we can do that, I think we can take another step forward to the leading teams. There’s work to do, but the signs are positive and we’ll keep pushing to turn that into a stronger position ahead of tomorrow’s Qualifying.”
“We're reasonably pleased with our progress today, although we know there's more performance to find in the car. Lando did an excellent job to get up to speed so quickly in FP2 after the hydraulic issue cost him most of the first session, which was very encouraging to see. While we feel we have opportunities to improve overnight, we are under no illusions about the level of competition. We expect it to be incredibly tight at the front.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to run the experimental wing we brought to the track. The team at the factory worked tirelessly to get it here, but during final sign-off tests in the garage, it didn't perform as expected, and we weren't comfortable running it. The correct decision was to focus our track time on optimising the current package for this weekend. It’s disappointing, but we will conduct more work on the component before bringing it to a future event.”
