Disclaimer: I use the McLaren app for their live commentary, the F1 app for their live timing and track map, and I watch the session on F1TV. I do not have access to in depth telemetry or more detailed information, so this is me compiling the information I have and doing some guesswork.
Important information from FP1: Oscar did not drive, his car being driven by Leo instead. In FP1 his car tested their new rear wing, which will not be run this weekend. McLaren reported that the wing functioned as suspected, which is positive. Lando's car was fitted with an upgraded floor, which will be run this weekend.
Important information about the track:
- This is a track that usually has very high track evolution. During FP2, this evolution was very slow due to winds.
- Turn 1 and turn 12 have been resurfaced. This seems to have created a small bump in turn 1 that has caught some drivers off guard, worsening problems with lock ups during breaking.
- Wind makes a big difference on this track, something we witnessed especially during Q3 in 2025.
- This track is known as "Monaco without walls", this is because the track is very narrow, which makes overtaking difficult. Qualifying is therefore more important.
- This track has a long run down to T1, almost half a kilometre, so a lot can happen on an opening lap of a race.
What happened during Free Practice 2:
Oscar's car goes back to the old rear wing. He runs with flo-vis on it during the beginning of the session. My guess is that they want to see the difference between the aero of the wings on this track, to have better data comparisons.
Lando continues on with the new floor, while Oscar drives with the
old floor. This is to give McLaren comparison data. Because of this, we should expect Lando to have an advantage during this session.
It becomes clear that T1 continues to be an issue, with people locking their tyres. We had more dramatic lock-ups in FP1, but the issue still persists. McLaren seems to handle this well, I did not notice any major lock-ups in this corner during the session.
T11 seems to be an issue for multiple drivers, with people going wide and therefore going off track. We also see many drivers taking too much curb in the chicane, leading to track limits.
T14, the final corner, also had many drivers going wide and struggling for grip. We get to see multiple onboards where drivers struggle with their cars, losing time.
In general, drivers struggle a lot with grip and car balance. This is not a McLaren specific issue. This seems to have a lot to do with the winds.
Both Lando and Oscar had troubles with getting a clean lap due to the lack of grip. Lando had his first clean run on his soft tyres, while Oscar stayed out longer on the mediums to get a clean lap.
We got a red flag this session due to Franco going off and hitting a barrier. Both Lando and Oscar were on push-laps when this happened. Lando had improved on his first run on the softs, putting in two purple sectors before having to abort due to the flag, and Oscar was on his first run on the softs, ~0,1 seconds slower than Lando in the first sector, before having to abort his lap.
It takes Oscar a few laps on the softs (including the aborted lap) to get a clean run. Therefore the tyres are more used, which could have affected his lap time.
They both did high-fuel runs, Lando doing more laps than Oscar due to Oscar going longer on their first medium-tyre stint, leaving him less time for the high-fuel. Lando lapped mostly between 1.24.0-1.24.8 at first, and later laps being in the low 1.25's. Oscar lapped between 1.25.0-1.26.0.
During the final 5 minutes, Lando changed back to the used soft tyres. He followed behind Kimi for a little (got a nice little gravel shower for it, too), gathering data on cooling when close behind another car, but backed off before the end of the session to try a final push lap (which of course was slower due to the used tyres)
Oscar said during practice that the car is very, very difficult to drive.
MJ's personal thoughts:
I had a few thoughts during this session, and as I mentioned before, this is me doing guesswork.
It seems that McLaren has used these first two practice sessions to gather as much data as possible, while also allowing the drivers to get used to the track. They seem to have been less concerned about running the proper upgrades on both cars.
From what little I can tell from the live timings and the track map, it seems like McLaren, compared to the other teams, is faster in the corners and slower on the straights.
I think Lando and Oscar might have different strategies in how they handle T1. Oscar seems to go faster on the straight before the turn, while Lando is faster going out of T1. I don't have detailed enough telemetry to make sure this is correct, but it's a guess I'm making due to how their sectors looked on the track map. This could also be them practicing the turn for different purposes. During a long run, going faster out of the turn might be preferable, but for the first lap, arriving at the turn first could be the better approach.
The struggle with lock-ups seems to be both track-specific and car specific. In FP1, we saw some dramatic lock-ups, that commentators speculated were due to car troubles. It seems to be a common issue on this track, but some cars seem to be affected more than others.
From previous years, we know Oscar prefers a high-grip track, while Lando is often faster on low grip tracks. Therefore I'm not surprised Oscar is struggling a little bit extra today, especially since he missed one practice session. These are not his preferred conditions to be driving in. That being said, I don't think any push-lap time from the McLaren drivers are representative today. Lando's had to abort what would have been his fastest lap due to a red flag, and Oscar is not driving with the upgraded floor, so I'm expecting better times for both during FP3.
