Max on P10 after first day in Japan: 'A lot of work to be done'

Published on 27 March 2026 by Florence Cobben

After closing the first free practice in Japan in seventh, Max put in the tenth-fastest time in the second session. Oscar Piastri for McLaren was the fastest man on track, followed by Kimi Antonelli in P2. Mercedes teammate George Russell rounded out the top three in third. On the Suzuka circuit, Lando Norris in the Mclaren and Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari rounded out the top five. Max’s Oracle Red Bull Racing-teammate, Isack Hadjar, was fifteenth-fastest by day’s end.

“Yeah (the session) was not very good, to be honest.” Max shared truthfully after the training. “We struggled a lot more with balance of the car and grip. From our side there's a lot of work to be done, also to understand why we’re having a lot of problems. We need to work (on that), I don’t think it’s an easy fix overnight.”

It’s 17 degrees at the start of the second free practice, with a track temperature of about 34 degrees. At McLaren, Lando Norris’ car is being treated after a problem arose in the first free practice – a hydraulic leak is rumored to be the issue. At Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso is back behind the wheel of his AMR26 after passing the baton to rookie Jak Crawford in the first session.

Lewis Hamilton is the first driver to take to the track as the light at the end of the pit lane goes green. Both Red Bulls also immediately head out on hard tyres: Hadjar goes fastest and Max follows two-tenths behind in P2. A round later Max is again on a fast lap, but gets impeded by Franco Colapinto and so has to break off his lap. Red Bull gets only a couple of moments in the sun, before both Mercedes, and then Oscar Piastri, take over the coveted P1 position.

After twelve minutes Alex Albon has churned to a halt because the gas pedal of his Williams doesn’t work anymore. Luckily, he gets his car moving again and gets back underway. In the meantime, the stewards have noted the incident between Colapinto and Max.

At Racing Bulls, Arvid Lindblad has retired early. The young Brit drove one installation lap before running into technical problems. A couple of garages away, McLaren has solved the problems to Norris’ car, and the world champion heads out on track with 36 minutes left on the clock.

While his teammate is getting his bearings, Piastri raises the bar, qualitatively improving the field’s best time on a set of sot tyres. In his rearview mirrors Antonelli is doing the same, bringing the young Italian to P2 behind the Australian on P1.

Halfway through the session, Max makes another attempt at joining the cream of the crop, but he can only manage P6. Over the radio, he complains of understeer.

With twenty minutes to go, Max switches to hard tyres to run race simulations. The Dutchman has sunk on the timesheets to P10. Like Max, most of the field has stopped running qualifying runs and has started preparing for the race on Sunday.

In the final phase, time improvements fail to materialize, and with that, the first day in Japan comes to an end.

Results second free practice Japan: