“McLaren were pretty fast so that was a little bit of a surprise to be honest. There are still some improvements we need to do so a bit of work to do tonight.” commented Russell, quoted by the official F1 website. He was only two tenths slower than Piastri in FP2.

Russell was also asked whether he thinks that McLaren’s pace was genuine: “I don't see why it wouldn't be genuine to be honest. I think Lando's had a disruptive day but Oscar has been pretty on it from the first lap out of the box this morning.” he also suggested that Mercedes needs to do more in order to keep winning the races.

“We'll find out come Qualifying. I think we've got some more to give and things weren't quite optimised, especially on my side with the energy management, so hopefully a little bit more to come tomorrow.” Russell added. He also thinks that there are some quite big differences in the deployment between the teams and that that has been optimised over the course of the lap. “I think we didn't quite have that right and it should be a relatively easy fix.” he concluded.

In FP2 session the current World Champion Lando Norris faced problems as the team suspected hydraulic leak which meant that Norris missed half of the session. But he still managed to finish only half a second behind Piastri. McLaren suffered a terrible start of the season as both cars DNS in China due to problems with their Mercedes power unit.