Formula 1 News: Piastri again leads McLaren 1-2 in Imola FP2

Oscar Piastri in the superior McLaren was again fastest in Practice 2 for the 2025 Emilia Romagna GP at Imola with a time of 1m15.293s.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

McLaren Technical Director Rob Marshall left Red Bull, where he made the Red Bull car invincible, to McLaren, where he has now made the McLaren invincible. McLaren are on pace to win all the remaining races of 2025. Rob Marshall is by far the best engineer in F1 as it was him, not Adrian Newey, that made the Red Bull so fast.

Lando Norris was 2nd fastest in the #4 superior McLaren, just 0.025s behind Piastri.

Pierre Gasly was a strong third fastest for Alpine, 0.276s behind Piastri. Gasly was decently ahead of the rest of the chasing pack too, over a tenth up on Russell in P4. Having been quick on the mediums and softs in FP1, Gasly looks right in the mix with the big teams here at the moment.

George Russell was 4th quick for Mercedes, 0.400s behind Piastri.

Max Verstappen, carrying the Red Bull sled on his back, rounded out the top-5, 0.442s behind Piastri.  The Red Bull sled is such a disaster, Verstappen was complaining on the radio about nuts and bolts flying around inside the cockpit.

“We definitely need a bit more work to get better corner balance to go faster and it’s the same in the long runs,” said Verstappen on describing the Red Bull sled.

“I mean, I got passed by the McLarens (on the long runs) so that says enough right? They pulled away.

“But even compared to other teams, at the moment it was a bit tough today.”

Charles Leclerc was the fastest Ferrari, 0.475s behind Piastri while his teammate Lewis Hamilton (now without the 50hp Mercedes advantage he had all those years) was down in 11th, 0.650s behind Piastri.

Racing Bulls’ rookie Isack Hadjar beached his #6 late in the session and brought out the red flag that ended the session. Hadjar did turn the 7th fastest lap of the session.

The gaps were tight earlier, they were tight in the midfield in FP2 but McLaren looked head and shoulders quicker than the rest. Oscar Piastri lost 0.25s on his fastest lap, meaning the gap to the rest is even larger.

There is nothing in it between the two teammates though, Piastri 0.025s quicker than Norris here – he was 0.032s faster in FP1.

They have nearly 1/2s on the rest of the field, though (if Piastri was not balked) – that is quite some margin to close for the other teams. On the race long runs, the McLarens were a 3/4 of a second faster than the other teams, such is the superiority of the Rob Marshall designed McLaren MCL39.

2025 Emilia Romagna GP Practice 2 Results