McLaren dominated second practice at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Lando Norris beating Oscar Piastri to top spot on Friday afternoon.
Norris was quick immediately despite having missed FP1 to give development driver Alex Dunne seat time, and he was peerless when the field switched to the soft tire halfway through the hour. The Briton set three purple sectors to lower the day’s benchmark to 1m04.580s before embarking on his race simulation on the medium-compound tire. He eclipsed teammate Piastri’s best effort by 0.157s, the Australian setting his time fractionally earlier and w as subsequently deployed on a long run on the hard tire.
Max Verstappen was third at the end of the first day of Red Bull Racing’s home grand prix, but the Dutchman was twice as far from top spot as Piastri, lapping 0.318s slower than Norris. Verstappen spent the rest of the session in a race simulation with the soft tire, with which he exhibited similar long-run pace early in the stint.
Lance Stroll was a surprise fourth for Aston Martin, unexpectedly separating the frontrunners with a strong lap on softs that put him 0.442s off the pace.
Charles Leclerc was bumped down to fifth after a scrappy session that saw him regularly lose the rear axle, including on one occasion that sent him skating over the gravel at Turn 6. He ended the day 0.61s off the pace.
