Oscar Piastri and Liam Lawson split duties on a scorching opening day of Pirelli tyre testing at Mugello, turning the Tuscan rollercoaster into a private laboratory for Formula 1’s future.
This was no headline-chasing shootout. It was hard miles, hard compounds, and hard heat.
Piastri grinds out McLaren mileage
Piastri logged 93 laps – 488 kilometres – in the McLaren, working through Pirelli’s three toughest compounds: C1, C2 and C3. His best lap, a 1m21.358s, came amid a structured program that built towards a pair of 14-lap runs after shorter stints earlier in the day.
The Australian’s task was clear: generate clean, consistent data across the range, not chase a glory lap. On a day when track temperatures hit 55 degrees Celsius, simply keeping the tyres in a workable window was a test in itself.
Mugello, with its long, loaded corners and high-speed sweeps, punishes any weakness in a tyre. For Pirelli, it’s a perfect stress test. For Piastri, it was a chance to quietly stack mileage and refine feel on compounds that could shape the 2027 regulations.
Lawson back in a Red Bull – and flat out
If Piastri’s day was solid, Lawson’s was relentless.
The New Zealander racked up 116 laps – 608 kilometres – for Red Bull, spending most of his time on the C2 compound. He began with repeated eight-lap runs, then stretched the length of his stints as the afternoon wore on and the evaluation deepened.
His quickest effort, a 1m22.297s, sat almost a second away from Piastri’s benchmark, but raw pace was never the point. The brief was comparison, degradation, and behaviour over varying run lengths, not qualifying simulations.
What made Lawson’s presence stand out was the timing. Only days after being thrown back into a Red Bull at Zandvoort, he was back in the car again – this time in the quiet, unforgiving environment of a tyre test rather than the chaos of a Grand Prix weekend.
At the Dutch Grand Prix, Lawson had been drafted in at short notice when Isack Hadjar was sidelined with a wrist injury. He qualified eighth and converted that into seventh place on Sunday, scoring his first points as a Red Bull race driver after a short two-race spell with the team at the start of 2025.
That result has inevitably sharpened the conversation around his immediate future. Red Bull wants Hadjar back for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next weekend, but there is still no firm confirmation on the Frenchman’s fitness. Until that comes, the question lingers: does Lawson get another shot?
Heat, hard tyres and 2027
For Pirelli, Mugello delivered exactly what it wanted: extreme conditions and a demanding layout to feed its 2027 development program.
With the focus locked on the three hardest compounds in the range, the company spent the day gathering comparative data – how each compound behaves over different stint lengths, how it copes with brutal surface temperatures, and how consistent performance can be maintained when the track is close to baking.
The numbers will not make any Sunday highlight reel, but days like this underpin the tyres that will decide races two seasons from now.
Norris, Iwasa and Audi up next
The work is far from done.
Testing continues on Thursday, with Lando Norris stepping into the McLaren in place of Piastri and Ayumu Iwasa taking over Red Bull duties from Lawson. Their job will be to add another layer of reference, another set of driving styles, to the growing bank of data.
Audi joins the party on day two as well, with Nico Hulkenberg scheduled to drive. A new manufacturer, a future-focused tyre program, and a brutal old-school circuit: Mugello is quietly offering a glimpse of what the next era of Formula 1 might feel like.
