Piastri likely to be only title contender to miss first practice at final round

Oscar Piastri is set to miss the opening practice session of the final round of the season – a weekend which looks increasingly likely to decide the world championship.

McLaren confirmed further details of its rookie practice driver roster today. Pato O’Ward will drive Lando Norris’s car in the opening session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez this weekend.

That will complete McLaren’s requirement to use two inexperienced drivers in Norris’s car over the course of the season. However they still need to complete a second run in Piastri’s car.

Abu Dhabi is the likeliest venue for them to choose. The other race weekends are less favourable choices as they are either sprint race events which offer only a single hour of practice (Brazil and Qatar) or take place at street circuits where the possibility of car damage is especially high and track time can be limited due to crashes causing red flags (Las Vegas).

Compared to those, Piastri and McLaren are likely to prefer sacrificing the opening practice session at Yas Marina, as it takes place earlier in the day and typically sees much hotter track conditions than qualifying or the grand prix.

Even so, a championship contender being unable to participate in all sessions during a final-round title decider would be unusual by recent standards. F1 introduced the rules forcing teams to run inexperienced drivers in their cars in 2022 and none of the three championships since then were decided at the final round.

Piastri’s leading championship rivals, Norris and Max Verstappen, will complete their allocation of practice runs for other drivers in Mexico this weekend. Ayumu Iwasa drove Verstappen’s car in Bahrain and Arvid Lindblad will drive it in Mexico, while Alex Dunne took over Norris’s car at the Austrian Grand Prix. Piastri only missed first practice at Monza, where Dunne again drove.

With five rounds to go, Piastri leads Norris by 14 points and Verstappen by 40.

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F1 teams’ practice drivers confirmed so far

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