Friday, 27 March 2026:
- Free Practice 1: P17, 1:33.383, 26 laps
- Free Practice 2: P13, 1:31.608, 28 laps

• Carlos Sainz had a challenging Friday in Suzuka in which he felt there was margin for improvement for the rest of the weekend, especially in long runs, although he did feel some progress over one lap.
• The Williams race driver used the three Pirelli tyre compounds in today’s sessions. He will now fine-tune his setup together with his engineers to try to make a step forward.
• His fastest lap in Free Practice 2 was just one tenth short of the Top 10, which allows to foresee a very tight Qualifying session in which the smallest margins can make the difference.

QUOTES:
“It was tough to get everything out of the car today but we had decent pace in the short runs during FP2. We seem to be more competitive over one lap, but we’re struggling with race pace in the high fuel runs. Tonight, we’ll look at what we can change with the setup to find some performance and hope to make some progress before Qualifying".

COMING UP:
Saturday, 28 March 2026:
- Free Practice 3: 11:30 local time (03:30 CET)
- Qualifying: 15:00 local time (07:00 CET)