Lando Norris wiped to first place in the twice red marked second practice session in the Dutch Grand Prix prior to an unexpected competitive Fernando Alonso.
Norris lowered its FP1 time by 0.4S to surpass the session with a fastest round of 1M09.89S. Although McLaren was the heavy favorite in Zandvoort, his fastest time was good enough to beat Alonso with only 0.087s.
Aston Martin has been in strong form all Friday and Alonso made the opportunity – and on a powerful slipstream straight ahead – to split the McLaren drivers at the top of the time hot.
This time championship leader Oscar Piastri was much closer to his session teammate, who only slapped 0.089’s slower than the sister car who all came from the last split, where he had to cross traffic, but that was not close enough to grab second place.
Piastri will also have to see the stewards after the session about an incident with Pitlane, so he came close to contact with George Russell while looking for his pit box. Russell had to go on the brakes to avoid Piastri while the Australian joined the fast job. However, no damage was done to the Mercedes and Russell finished fourth and 0.384s of the pace.
House favorite Max Verstappen was an improved fifth, although the Dutchman praised 0.588’s slower than Norris in a Red Bull Racing car that did not seem to inspire in the triple Zandvoort winner.
Lewis Hamilton was an unexpected sixth – an important improvement compared to his terrible 15th in FP1 – despite turning his car on his first flying round on softs.
The Brit had just set a purple first sector when his car walked through the tight bend 9. Hamilton tried to control the slide through the corner, but his left-rack band touched the grass and sent him on the road. It spoiled the round, but not his tires, which he took for a second run to shoot 0.848s from the pace with the suspicion that there is more on the table with fresh rubber.
Yuki Tsunoda had improved in the same way, an increase from the 16th to the seventh and 0.9s of the pace. His margin for Verstappen was only 0.317s.
Charles Leclerc took the second Ferrari to eighth and 0.1s behind Hamilton.
Franco Colapinto led the road for Alpine in the ninth for Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg in the 10th.
Oliver Bearman was 11th for Haas for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes Junior who makes the time in the gravel in FP1 on his way to the 12th in the gravel. Gabriel Bortoleto followed in the 13th for Liam Lawson, Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz.
Alex Albon followed Sainz in the second Williams, but did not see the checkered flag after he had stranded his car in the gravel at turn 1.
Albon slid over the stones and encouraged the barriers and damaged his front wing. He was lucky that he had stopped on an escape road, but in his hurry to return from the incident, his car stranded in the stones, activating the second red flag of the session.
The first red flag came to Lance Stroll thanks to whose afternoon only lasted 11 minutes and six laps before he brought his Aston Martin heavily in the external barrier at bend 3, Hugenholtz Curve.
Stroll was on a hot round when he wore too much speed in the high line of the bank -like left -handed, causing his car understeer and career in the wall. Both right corners wore the damage of the impact, which shed the smoldering Aston Martin back in the middle of the track. A red flag of 10 minutes was called to free up the wreck, walking away from the scene unharmed.
Pierre Gasly was 19th and the last of the drivers to have set for a while after his two attempts on a round on soft tires were spoiled by Albon’s Red Flag and a virtual Safety Car to cover the racing bulls car from Isack Hadjar, who stopped the French smoke in front of a problem with a problem.
Result
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