Piastri back in control in second Spanish Grand Prix practice

McLaren's Oscar Piastri ended Friday practice at the Spanish Grand Prix ahead of the closely matched Mercedes and Red Bull Racing cars.

Piastri bounced back emphatically from his lackluster FP1 showing to lower the benchmark to 1m12.760s, his McLaren poised and under control despite track temperatures spiking above 110 degrees F. It left the title leader 0.286s clear of George Russell, who put Mercedes in the mix with his first run on softs for the day, having eschewed the red-walled rubber in the earlier session.

Max Verstappen was close behind, lapping just 0.024s slower than Russell in a tight battle for best of the rest, while Lando Norris was fourth fastest in the sister McLaren, the Briton 0.31s slower than the leader.

More Formula 1

Red Bull and Ferrari upgrades could prove crucial in Austria

FIA makes F1 driving standards and penalty guidelines public

Why Russell is right where he needs to be

Charles Leclerc corralled his out-of-control Ferrari to fifth in the order but was half a second off the pace. Leclerc was spotted sliding his SF-25 through Turns 7, 8 and 9 on his sole qualifying-style lap, and the majority of his deficit was commensurately in the middle split. Teammate Lewis Hamilton struggled even more severely, his fastest lap leaving him 11th and a further 0.273s adrift.

“The car is not drivable, mate,” he said despondently afterwards.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli was sixth and a quarter of a second behind Mercedes teammate Russell, pipping Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to the position.

Pierre Gasly was eighth for Alpine ahead of Racing Bulls teammates Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson, 0.64s and 0.73s off the pace respectively. The sullen Hamilton was 11th ahead of Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg in 12th.

Yuki Tsunoda was a long way off Red Bull Racing teammate Verstappen, ending the day 13th and 0.923s behind Piastri.

“This amount of sliding I have is not normal, mate. It is crazy,” he radioed his engineer after his soft run. “Literally they’re just sliding around, no grip.”

Williams teammates Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were 14th and 15th ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who fumed about a handling problem early in the hour.

“It’s so bad!” the Canadian shouted before returning to pit lane for quick repairs. If they worked, however, they weren’t to his satisfaction –  Stroll made several subsequent lengthy stops in his garage and ended up wrapping up his session 10m early, leaving him with just 17 laps for the session.

Gabriel Bortoleto was 17th ahead of Haas teammate Oliver Bearman, who lost significant track time after he spun off the road at Turn 3 at the beginning of the session. The British rookie ran too wide through the super-long right-hander and lost control of his car, which ended up skating through the gravel, necessitating detailed garage checks of his floor for damage.

Franco Colapinto was slowest for the second consecutive session, ending the day 1.543s off the pace.