George Russell topped the timesheets in FP2 ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri close behind and home hero Max Verstappen rounding out the top five on Friday afternoon.
Early running at Zandvoort seems to indicate a three-way battle at the front on race day. The upgraded McLarens look set to continue their pre-summer break run of form, with both Mercedes drivers also staying in the mix. Verstappen was the sole Red Bull driver to finish in the top ten across both Friday sessions as the RB20 once again looked challenging to handle.
Ferrari doesn’t appear to be in immediate contention at this stage. Charles Leclerc finished ninth in the more representative afternoon session while Sainz watched on from the garage after a gearbox issue cut his Friday running short.
Speaking post-session, Russell pointed out that the tricky conditions made it hard to get a clear read on the expected pecking order, but acknowledged that the W15 has been performing well so far.
“Getting back into the swing of things…Really difficult out there. It was so, so windy, probably the windiest I’ve remembered in the last couple of years,” he commented. “The car was performing really well, got the upgrades on which seem to be working as expected.
“It looks like quite a close battle with the McLarens [and] with Max, but it could all be different again tomorrow.
“In the first six races, the car was off the pace but the weather was consistent and they were pretty straightforward race weekends for everyone. Suddenly as soon as the car’s been quick in Canada and Silverstone, all sorts have been thrown at us, but it’s the same for everyone.”
Lewis Hamilton added that the team’s improved understanding of the W15 allows them to find their footing much faster and with less effort on race weekends.
“It wasn’t a bad start to the weekend,” he said. “It’s a big, big difference compared to last year so the car’s definitely feeling more alive and we’re right up there at the front.
“We understand the car so much better now, so to start off on the right foot from the get-go and just making small tweaks from there is definitely very helpful. It makes our job more enjoyable.
“I think there’s still performance left, but I’ve just got to work a little bit on the set-up. I don’t know if I looked particularly that quick, but again I think the set-up that I had for qualifying or for a single lap was hindering the long run.
“I don’t know whether or not [we could be in the mix] for the win but we’re definitely at least in the top five,” Hamilton concluded.
Lando Norris felt “pretty good” after a productive first day of running, but cautioned that he expects Mercedes to be close challengers this weekend. The McLaren driver topped FP1 as mixed conditions limited running and finished FP2 fourth overall, 0.259s off Russell’s pace.
“I think Zandvoort’s a tough one to come back to straightaway just because it’s quick and it’s up and down, it’s twisty, a bit of everything,” Norris said. “So yeah, nice, first day back in the car. A bit of progress needs to be made before tomorrow.”
As for whether McLaren can prove to be the strongest team, Norris admitted, “Probably not, Mercedes are quicker.
“It’s close. I don’t think there is a quickest, it just depends on different factors. But we’ve been in good form since Miami, but we’ve not really brought any updates since Miami. This weekend’s our first time trying to make a bit more progress with the car.
“[I’m] optimistic but I have no idea if it’s working or not, or how it’s performing at the minute, but today was a reasonable day and we’re there or thereabouts. A little bit more to find overnight, hopefully, and we can challenge the Mercedes.”
Teammate Oscar Piastri concurred, saying, “FP1 was a little bit tricky, but FP2 looked good. Our one-lap pace looked pretty good—I need to look at our long-run pace, but it looked pretty solid. Mercedes looked quick again, so I’m expecting it to be a pretty hard-fought weekend once again.”
“It was pretty good,” Piastri said of the upgraded package. “It doesn’t feel massively different and it should be a bit faster, hopefully. It all went smoothly, all went to plan, and hopefully just makes us a little bit faster from now.”
Verstappen gave a candid assessment of his start to the weekend, lamenting Red Bull’s lack of pace compared to their rivals. The Dutch driver appears to have his work cut out for him this weekend as he aims for his fourth consecutive win at Zandvoort.
“Of course, in FP1 I didn’t really get a lot of running in,” Verstappen said.
“I guess in FP2 you could see a little bit more where you are. [We’re] a bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run, so a bit of work to do. At the moment, [there’s] no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. Just a bit too slow, as simple as that.”
Verstappen conceded that the current performance slump is reflective of Red Bull’s ongoing struggles.
“It’s where we’ve been the last few races, so it’s not really a surprise,” he said. “We’ll try to just find a little bit more performance for Sunday.”
