Piastri and Lawson Shine in Pirelli Tyre Testing at Mugello
Oscar Piastri and Liam Lawson split duties on a searing first day of Pirelli tyre testing at Mugello, pounding around the Tuscan circuit as Formula 1’s 2027 rubber quietly took shape in the background.
This was no headline-chasing shootout. It was a grind.
Piastri lays down the mileage for McLaren
Piastri logged 93 laps – 488 kilometres – in the McLaren, his day built around the three hardest compounds in Pirelli’s range: C1, C2 and C3.
His best effort, a 1m21.358s, came amid a structured programme that started with shorter stints before building into a pair of 14-lap runs to close the day. Long, disciplined spells, exactly the kind engineers crave when the stopwatch isn’t the main judge.
The Australian’s task was clear: give Pirelli clean, consistent data across the toughest compounds in brutal heat, rather than chase a glory lap. With track temperatures peaking at 55°C, the asphalt offered a punishing test bed for how these tyres behave when the circuit is at its most hostile.
Lawson goes long for Red Bull
If Piastri’s day looked 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, ticking off the same distance again and again as Pirelli built its comparison bank. As the afternoon wore on and the evaluation deepened, those runs stretched out, giving the tyre supplier a broader window on degradation and performance drop-off.
Lawson’s quickest lap, a 1m22.297s, trailed Piastri’s benchmark, but outright pace simply wasn’t the brief. The focus sat firmly on consistency, behaviour and correlation for Pirelli’s 2027 development programme, not on who topped an unofficial timesheet.
What did stand out was the timing. Lawson found himself back in a Red Bull just days after his latest cameo for the senior team at Zandvoort, where he was drafted in at short notice when Isack Hadjar was sidelined with a wrist injury.
Thrown into the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, Lawson qualified eighth and converted that into seventh place on Sunday, banking his first points as a Red Bull race driver after a short two-race spell with the team at the start of 2025. Mugello, then, became an immediate extension of that momentum – same colours, different job, same opportunity to impress.
Heat, hard tyres and a crowded future
The conditions did their part. With the track baking at 55°C, Mugello turned into a laboratory for tyre stress. Long, loaded corners, high speeds, minimal respite. Exactly the sort of place where the hardest compounds either stand up or fall apart.
Pirelli’s mission is to understand how those C1–C3 tyres behave now so the 2027 generation can be tuned with fewer surprises. Teams, meanwhile, get precious extra mileage, data on their cars in extreme conditions, and another look at drivers under pressure.
For Red Bull, there is an added layer. Hadjar is still targeting a return for the Italian Grand Prix next weekend, and the team remains hopeful he will be fit. There is, however, no firm confirmation yet on whether the Frenchman will make the Monza grid or if Lawson will be asked to step back into the race seat for another weekend.
Every lap Lawson turns, whether in a grand prix or a test, sharpens that conversation.
Norris, Iwasa and Audi step in
The Mugello test rolls on into Thursday with a fresh cast.
Lando Norris will take over from Piastri in the McLaren, picking up where his team-mate left off on the hard compounds. At Red Bull, Ayumu Iwasa replaces Lawson, adding his own data set to Pirelli’s growing 2027 file.
Audi’s arrival adds another point of intrigue. The manufacturer joins the programme for day two with Nico Hulkenberg at the wheel, a useful chance to log serious mileage as the brand continues to embed itself into F1’s future.
No trophies, no podiums, no champagne. Just heat, hard tyres and hundreds of laps that will help shape what the sport feels like in 2027 – and, for a few drivers, what their careers might look like long before then.
