Piastri and Lawson Shine in Pirelli Tyre Test at Mugello
The Tuscan hills shimmered in 55-degree track temperatures, and Pirelli went hunting for answers. On a searing opening day of a two-day test at Mugello, Oscar Piastri and Liam Lawson split duties for McLaren and Red Bull as Formula 1’s tyre supplier pushed the three hardest compounds in its range to the limit.
This was no headline-chasing shootout. It was about mileage, discipline and data.
Piastri grinds through McLaren programme
Piastri’s day was all about structure. The Australian logged 93 laps – 488 kilometres – as McLaren worked methodically through the C1, C2 and C3 compounds.
His best effort, a 1m21.358s, came amid a programme that built towards a pair of 14-lap runs, the closest thing to race-style stints on a day largely dominated by shorter, controlled outings. The focus sat firmly on tyre behaviour, not outright speed: how the rubber coped with the relentless, high-energy load of Mugello’s fast, flowing corners and brutal heat.
The long runs at the end of the day underlined the brief. Consistency over a stint, degradation patterns, how the hardest tyres wake up and then hang on – those were the questions McLaren and Pirelli were trying to answer.
Lawson piles on the laps for Red Bull
On the other side of the garage divide, Lawson simply kept going. The New Zealander racked up 116 laps and 608 kilometres for Red Bull, the heaviest workload of the day, with the C2 compound as his main companion.
Early on, Lawson cycled through repeated eight-lap runs, a classic tyre test rhythm: push, cool, adjust, repeat. As the afternoon wore on and the evaluation deepened, the stints stretched out, mirroring the way teams might use the compound in 2027 race conditions.
His quickest lap, a 1m22.297s, sat almost a second shy of Piastri’s benchmark, but that number told very little of the story. Red Bull and Pirelli were chasing comparative data, not a timesheet headline.
What did stand out was the context. Just days after being thrust back into a Red Bull at Zandvoort, Lawson was again in top-tier machinery, this time in the quieter, more forensic world of tyre development.
From Zandvoort surge to Mugello slog
Lawson arrived in Tuscany on the back of his most significant weekend yet in Red Bull colours. Drafted in at short notice for the Dutch Grand Prix when Isack Hadjar was ruled out with a wrist injury, the Kiwi qualified eighth and converted that into seventh place on Sunday.
Those points were his first as a Red Bull race driver, coming after a brief two-race spell with the team at the start of 2025. The Mugello test, then, felt like an extension of that momentum: fewer cameras, same opportunity to impress.
Red Bull, though, still has a decision to make. The team hopes Hadjar will be fit to return for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next weekend, but there is no confirmation yet. If the Frenchman fails to recover in time, Lawson’s name stays at the top of the list.
Norris, Iwasa and Audi step in next
The work in Tuscany is only halfway done. Testing continues on Thursday, with McLaren handing the car to Lando Norris as the team switches focus from Piastri’s data to the Briton’s feel and feedback.
Red Bull will rotate as well, with Ayumu Iwasa taking over from Lawson to add another reference point for Pirelli’s 2027 development push.
There is another subplot, too. Audi joins the programme on day two, with Nico Hülkenberg scheduled to drive as the future entrant continues its own quiet build-up towards the grid.
One scorching day at Mugello has already given Pirelli thousands of kilometres of information. The next will say even more about who adapts quickest to the tyres that could define the next era.
