SUZUKA, Japan, March 27, 2026 – Mercedes driver George Russell said he was surprised by the pace of McLaren as Oscar Piastri set the fastest time in Friday practice at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Piastri ended the first day’s running at the classic Suzuka track 0.092 seconds ahead of Russell’s team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who took his maiden grand prix victory in China last time out.
Russell, leading the championship after the first two races, was third fastest, 0.205secs off Piastri’s pace and 0.113secs slower than his team-mate.
“McLaren were pretty fast,” the Briton said, “so a little bit of a surprise, to be honest. Still some improvements to do so a bit of work to do tonight.”
The second McLaren of Lando Norris was fourth fastest, ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, despite missing the first half of the final session with a hydraulic leak and and having couple of off-track moments.
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be representative,” Russell said. “Lando has had a pretty disrupted day but Oscar’s looked pretty on it from the first lap out of the box this morning so we will find out come qualifying.
“We have got some more to give and things weren’t quite optimised on my side, especially with the energy management, so hopefully a little bit more to come tomorrow [Saturday].”
Russell’s pace compared to Antonelli was compromised by the way he was driving the Spoon corner, which was affecting how much battery level he had left at the end of the lap.
Deputy team principal Bradley Lord said: “The driving style through Spoon meant George was hitting the harvesting limit earlier in the lap than Kimi and that was costing him out of the final corner but that’s something that will be looked at overnight.”
Has Suzuka’s challenge been dimmed?
Russell said concerns that the need for energy management with the new hybrid engines would reduce the challenge of Suzuka were misplaced.
He said. “We are a bit down on speed into the first corner but the Esses is still super-fast, and the speed we get up to halfway down the back straight is the fastest we’ve ever done. So that’s pretty cool and good to see.”
But Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, struggling in 10th place, disagreed and said his fears that the cars’ energy recovery programmes would reduce the challenge of the Degners and the Esses had come true.
“It is what we saw from the simulations; same for everyone, right?” said Verstappen, who was 1.376secs off the pace.
“I don’t think that was our biggest problem. We just struggled a lot more with the balance of the car and grip, not similar to China but we are still off, not really understanding why we are that far off in sector one, in medium to high speed a lot. It is something we need to work on, there are a few things not going right at the moment.
“I had two opposites [of balance] today and we never get it together. You go from one extreme to the other and that is bleeding a lot of lap time.”
The Dutchman, who on Thursday ejected a journalist from his news conference because he was unhappy about a question that was asked at last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, was behind Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg, Williams’ Alex Albon and the Haas of Oliver Bearman.
Can anyone get close to Mercedes?
Mercedes felt McLaren’s pace on one lap could put them in the fight for pole, but that was a view of which McLaren themselves were sceptical.
Although McLaren set the pace at the end of the day, Mercedes’ expected superiority was underlined on the race-simulation runs late in the second session, with Antonelli leading the way from Russell.
Piastri was next fastest once traffic that slowed him in the middle of his run was taken out of the calculation but he was still 0.25secs on average slower than Antonelli and 0.5secs off Russell.
Mercedes believe the qualifying fight will be close, but senior figures at McLaren said they think the competitive picture is the same as in the first two races, with Mercedes out in front.
Both Ferrari drivers seemed to be struggling for grip, and not on the level of McLaren, let alone Mercedes.
Leclerc suffered some wobbles through the Esses and ran off track at Spoon Curve later on, while Hamilton complained he was “slow because I’ve got no confidence in the car”.
Ferrari sporting director Diego Ioverno said: “The gap is more or less where we expected it to be, also quite in line with the first two races, especially in the short runs. We have to improve.”
Norris’ early problem was a hydraulics failure, which McLaren fixed after half an hour. He had also spent a lot of the first session doing aerodynamic testing and felt he had had “a pretty terrible start to the weekend”.
He added: “I just lacked a lot of laps. Even P1, a lot of my running all the morning was just aero running and the few laps I did get were not representative.
“Around a track like this you want laps under your belt to give yourself confidence. I am two or three steps behind on set-up and no long running.”
He was far from the only driver to have problems. Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad took no part in the second session because of a gearbox problem that required a new part, while Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto spent nearly three-quarters of the session in the garage with an unspecified technical problem.
Cadillac’s Sergio Perez missed about half the session while the team repaired floor damage caused by a collision with Williams’ Alex Albon in first practice.
Fernando Alonso had his first taste of Suzuka this year in the second session, after American reserve driver Jak Crawford drove in the first for Aston Martin.
The veteran Spaniard, who arrived late in Japan following the birth of his first child, was 19th fastest, two places and 0.355secs ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll.
The struggling team’s speed has been hindered by their Honda engine, which has been blighted by poor reliability and a lack of performance at the start of their works relationship with Aston Martin, but Honda F1 boss Koji Watanabe said both aspects should be improved for the company’s home race this weekend.
Watanabe added: “We are focused on how we can improve the situation of vibration, mainly damage to battery area, but also this time for Suzuka we have improved the energy management situation for more driving performance.”
