Time to dust off the helmets and get back on track for the second half of the season for Formula 1.
After a summer break that ended with Lewis Hamilton on the highest step of the podium in Belgium, after teammate George Russell was disqualified after the race, action resumes in Zandvoort, home of standing world champion and current leader Max Verstappen.
And it begins exactly where we left off, on a wet track for the first free practice session of this Dutch weekend.
Magnussen and Gasly are the first drivers to come out of the pitlane and the Alpine is quick to experience the wind hovering over the track as it has a wobblingly moment .
Haas quick switch places, as Magnussen gets back into the garage just as Hulkenberg has made his entrance on track.
Not quite a fortunate one, as he goes into the gravel at Turn 10.
A relatively new face comes up as Robert Shwartzman comes out in Bottas’ single seater, along with Zhou and Carlos Sainz.
Wet tyres are the only choice so far, in a not-so-action-packed first quarter that has seen only 9 laps completed, mostly by Sainz and Gasly and no timed laps at all.
It seems that so far drivers are rather exploring the conditions of the track, with Sargeant, Leclerc and Albon coming out and quickly in again.
Finally we start to have the first timed laps, 1m26.111s for Charles Leclerc that is soon topped by Max Verstappen, 1m21.300s for him.
Abundantly over the first half of the session rain has quieted down and the asphalt is beginning to dry up.
Meanwhile Sargeant is given a fine for speeding in the pitlane and Lando Norris takes the top of the leaderboard.
Gasly has put his Alpine in P4, but he goes off track into the gravel at Turn 1.
Last fifteen minutes are undergo with Shwartzman posting a better time than his teammate to go P12.
A brief moment of silence with the track clear and it’s time to come out with the softest compound for the final minutes of running.
Significantly faster times now, with the McLaren improving their times by 3 whole seconds, meaning Norris takes the top.
Fourth place for Verstappen, while the Ferraris are the first to go out on a medium compound.
Verstappen makes his way up on the final run to take the lead, but as FP1 comes to an end it is again Lando Norris to finish ahead of everyone.
