Piastri quickest on Friday but warns of Imola fight to come

Oscar Piastri was the man to beat on the opening day of running at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, flying to the top of the timesheets in both practice sessions despite warning, “there’s a few others that will join us in the fight”.

Enjoying the atmosphere of yet another ‘home race’, Piastri masked his true pace with a tame opening lap of 1:19.294s, lulling the field into a false sense of competitiveness.

The championship leader continued lapping on the soft compound tyre for the first 10 minutes, before improving to P3, a significant five-tenths behind his teammate’s early benchmark. 

On his next push lap, Piastri shaved four-tenths off that margin, with the C6 tyre — making its 2025 race weekend debut — reinstating him as the third fastest driver before he returned to the pitlane. 

When the Australian rejoined FP1, he was armed with a fresh set of red-marked tyres, putting them to work when he tracked with personal best and overall best sectors across the 4.9km lap.

He crossed the line with a time of 1:16.545s, earning him the top spot ahead of George Russell before a lull fell over the circuit.

Taking to the track to defend the lead time from Lando Norris, who was just 0.032s behind, he painted the timesheets yellow with a lack of improvement across the board, alluding to a high-fuel, long-run program to end the first hour of practice. 

“Reasonably [smooth day], yes,” Piastri said.

“I think there’s still some things we want to try and work on and improve.

“You know, this wouldn’t be the first Friday where we’ve looked strong and then everyone’s found a bit more going into Qualifying, so I think we still want to find a bit more.

“But, everything’s gone pretty smoothly, you know, the car is feeling decent — still a few more things to tweak but, all in all, not bad.”

With the afternoon session providing close to qualifying and race-representative conditions, the popular choice of tyre was the medium compound, with Piastri no exception to that trend.

The Australian momentarily found himself at the top of the order after his first run, however, his time of 1:16.526s was soon demoted to P3 when both Norris and Max Verstappen crossed the line.

Going quicker on his next tour of the old-school circuit, Piastri came within 87 milliseconds of Norris’ benchmark lap before Carlos Sainz flew to the top of the order, knocking both McLaren drivers down a peg. 

Alex Albon soon joined his Williams teammate, and with Russell the first driver to stun on the soft tyre, Piastri was left in P5 as a lull fell over the circuit.

Piastri lit up the timing sheets on return, setting purple Sectors 1 and 2 before a minor slide and traffic interference in the last sector slightly dimmed his C6 attempt.

Despite that, the Australian still managed to record a new benchmark of 1:15.293s, besting Norris by 25 milliseconds.

With under 20 minutes remaining, Piastri got going once again, lapping the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari on the medium compound tyre to round out the final Friday session.

A late Red Flag brought his program to a halt, however, the remaining two minutes on the clock allowed the field to complete one final lap and a practice start as the chequered flag was waved.

Piastri ended the session as the fastest driver, leading a McLaren 1-2 with a fastest time of 1:15.293s before switching his focus to tomorrow’s crucial Qualifying task.

“Saturday has been very important pretty much everywhere this year,” Piastri said.

“I think, regardless of what the rest of this year has looked like, Imola is a place where Qualifying means a lot and that is going to be important but at the moment I don’t think it’s just Lando and I.

“I think there’s a few others that will join us in the fight tomorrow, so we’ve got to keep our heads down and try and find a bit more.”

The final hour of practice will kick off at 20:30 AEST, followed by Qualifying at 00:00 AEST.

Image: Formula 1

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