2026 Australian GP: Piastri finishes the day on top

The second practice session began with an incident. Cars were lined up in the pit lane, and during the confusion, George Russell made contact with Arvid Lindblad, who was passing through. Russell had to replace the nose section of his front wing.

Drivers conducted the usual tire evaluation program. The session began with the harder compounds, combined with work on optimising energy deployment over a lap. In Melbourne, few heavy braking zones exist to recover energy, and the cars were slow on the straights.

As in the morning, the session was not without problems. First, the car of Franco Colapinto lost speed at the beginning of the start-finish straight — Lewis Hamilton changed direction at the last moment to avoid a collision. The stewards noted the incident for investigation.

At the pit exit, the engine on Max Verstappen’s car stalled. Mechanics pushed the car back to the garage and surrounded it, hiding the car for about half an hour, as the problem could not be fixed immediately.

Fernando Alonso had not run in the morning due to battery issues, but he was allowed to complete a few laps in the second session. Because of a problem with one of the sensors on the power unit, Sergio Pérez only left the pits in the final ten minutes. However, he halted on the track prior to initiating a fast lap, prompting marshals to move the car behind the barriers.

Russell, Colapinto, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Isack Hadjar all ran off the track at various points. Verstappen also damaged the floor of his car after running over a kerb.

The fastest time of the session was set by Oscar Piastri with 1:19.729.

Practice continues tomorrow.