What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Brazilian GP

Past tension is in the past tense; Formula 1's newest champion was feeling free in his Sao Paulo Grand Prix return to the circuit, a week after his crowning glory. 

Kimi Antonelli admitted to feeling rigid behind the wheel under the stress of closing out the title in Mexico, which inhibited his natural driving approach to leave a couple of tenths on the table. Now that the deed is done, however, there was no such mental block; the Italian was a quarter of a second clear of Lando Norris at the close of the second practice session in Brazil.

Norris himself was just 0.006s clear of Max Verstappen at the close of the session, McLaren having experimented with new front and rear wings for this round in its efforts to reclaim third in the constructors' championship from Red Bull. The rapid escalation of development from the Milton Keynes team over the course of the season has demonstrated that it can match the heady heights reached by McLaren across 2023 and 2024 with its own development, and the Woking team is taking one final chance to find its own path ahead.

As the two Mercedes, both McLarens, and Verstappen were all within 0.321s in the top five, the Ferrari duo fell short - a surprise, given its prowess in practice and its recent string of front-running form on Fridays.

It tallies that its performance has not lived up to that level given the circuit temperatures have not been particularly warm, only around 36C - and we know Ferrari tends to fade with the track cools down as it struggles to build heat into the tyre, especially on the front axle. Thus, we heard Lewis Hamilton commenting that the fronts were struggling to bite more than once, while Charles Leclerc was unsettled by his braking performance shifting rearwards in the early part of the session.

Isack Hadjar also struggled slightly, ending the session only ninth, and was leapfrogged by Gabriel Bortoleto. The Paulista is seeking to make up for his nightmarish first race at his home grand prix last year, his performance suffused by the pressure of driving at your local track. This, meanwhile, is a fate that newcomer Rafael Camara is trying to avoid; although hailing from Recife, over 2000km north of Sao Paulo, the pressure of making one's debut at their home race is a very unique scenario indeed. Small wonder, then, that Haas is looking to help the Brazilian build up slowly through the weekend.

Rafael Camara makes his F1 debut this weekend - under the pressure of his home crowd

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Camara's new team-mate, Ollie Bearman, plonked his car 10th in FP2, above the usual suspects in Alpine and Racing Bulls. One thread present across the weekend thus far is that Liam Lawson, who has been an impressive force in the 'lead' VCARB this season and sits a clear ninth in the championship (with almost double the points of 10th-placed Pierre Gasly), has a "blurry" future at the team.

Young gun Nikola Tsolov is vying to become F1's first Bulgarian driver, and the likely scenario is that Lawson would be the one to make way. That's a crying shame given the Kiwi's impressive form in 2026, but Racing Bulls' raison d'etre is to supply Red Bull with future championship prospects - and it's felt that Lawson does not show up on that radar.

On the subject of surprise driver movements - in a driver market that has suddenly burst into life after months of dormancy - Colton Herta has now secured the final superlicence point needed to drive in F1 in 2027. Cadillac is assessing whether to keep Valtteri Bottas for next year, or fulfil its dream of fielding an American driver - and Herta, despite his toils in F2, is still highly regarded by the team. In any case, F2 is always hard to read - just look at Bearman, who endured a miserable second year in the series before impressing on his elevation to F1. Of the other FP1 rookies, Gabriele Mini impressed for Alpine by ending the session seventh fastest. 

For the first time since 2019, Sao Paulo is not hosting a sprint weekend - so, for the first time in six years, we've got the chance to assess the teams' Friday race pace across two practice sessions.

Average FP2 long runs

Although it's not entirely surprising that Antonelli is top of the pops after FP2 across both long and short runs, the length of his soft-tyre stint during FP2 was gargantuan and he put together a 20-lap run on the softs while still producing the fastest average of anyone. There was a difference of around 0.7s from his final lap on the run to the first, albeit with two or three slower laps that will have helped to cool the tyre. Regardless, his management of the degradation looked pretty handy, and will deliver a significant shot across the bows of his potential victory rivals.

That said, Antonelli reckons there's "a bit of work to do" - so either perhaps there's more in it (and understeer did appear to be a factor through the session on both cars), or he's expecting his rival teams to make a step up in performance. One hint of that was Norris' equivalent pace on the hard tyre; while Norris did fewer laps on the C3 compared to Antonelli on the C5, the McLaren driver's pace was strong - and overall, quicker than Piastri's soft-tyre run.

"Certainly FP1 was a little bit of a pleasant surprise; FP2, I think we seemed to struggle a little bit more compared to the Mercedes, just two tenths off on every lap basically," Norris reflected. "But relative to some of the others, I think we seem pretty good. The upgrades, even though I had half and then half, and we're going to put everything together for tomorrow, the upgrades also seem to have given what we hoped for, I would say. I think it's been a good day in terms of getting through the run plan and also a good day for relative performance."

If McLaren can indeed be a factor, that'll be unwelcome news to Red Bull - which was struggling with a handful of issues across the day. Max Verstappen, for example, was finding his car's steering difficult to manage. It had become progressively heavier through FP1, and Laurent Mekies suggested that a "similar" issue was causing problems over FP2. There's certainly more to find with the RB22, even if Verstappen was able to turn in a strong lap at the start of the session...but at the same time, you'd back the Dutchman to be competitive in a pick-up truck. 

Ferrari probably has the biggest portfolio of overnight work to complete. Single-lap pace was missing, and neither Lewis Hamilton nor Charles Leclerc could dig out much in the way of a race run either - Leclerc's soft-tyre average was about 0.4s away from its nearest rivals, while Hamilton used the medium before switching to the soft. The Briton did a short stint on those C5s and did average out at 1m15.245s; there is some encouragement to be had here, but it would be remiss of us to count a five-lap spell.

Hamilton and Ferrari have time to find after a low-key start to the weekend

Photo by: Manuel Eletto / Getty Images

Alpine and Audi were very evenly matched across the long runs, although Audi only had Bortoleto's car in action as Nico Hulkenberg missed FP2 with an electrical problem - something that flared up during Freddie Slater's FP1 session.

Still, Bortoleto was incredibly close to Gasly's average, as the two teams were about 0.2s per lap clear of the Racing Bulls and Haas stints. Unsurprisingly, Camara's stint on the soft was less consistent compared to Bearman - and the Pernambucan also earned himself a first F1 stewards' visit after unwittingly impeding Leclerc in the final turn - for which he was ultimately reprimanded.

Williams looks less far off this weekend, although Carlos Sainz is having to manage his engine mileage which only restricted reserve driver Luke Browning to a handful of laps in FP1. At the bottom end, Cadillac and Aston Martin were split by a tenth.

But, as ever, this could all count for nothing if it rains over the rest of the weekend. There is precipitation forecast across the next two days, although it entirely depends on when it should fall. As a local journalist told this writer some years ago, you should always view the weather forecast in Sao Paulo with some degree of scepticism...

Herta bagged his final superlicence point in FP1 - will he drive in F1 full-time in 2027?

Photo by: James Sutton / Formula 1 / Formula Motorsport Ltd via Getty Images