Ian Parkes
Friday, September 3, 2021 11:32 AM – Updated: 12:32 PM
Sebastian Vettel had to become a firefighter to take care of his Aston Martin, which had suffered a suspected engine failure in the first practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix.
When Formula 1 returned to Zandvoort after 36 years of waiting, only 24 minutes of action were possible in the one-hour opening session on the racetrack by the sea.
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With just under 44 minutes to go, Vettel took the red flags.
Vettel had previously been informed of an MGU-K problem after his reconnaissance laps on the track, but the AMR21 soon had to stop after returning to the track.
When smoke rose from the car, there was the remarkable sight of Vettel calling for a fire extinguisher from a marshals.
After initial difficulties in operating the device and apparently heated discussions with the responsible marshals, Vettel finally managed to spray foam over and into the car.
But then there seemed to be further discussion about whether he was using the correct fire extinguisher, as the four-time champion was given a second and third system.
When a tow truck arrived a few minutes later, Vettel was still trying to apply foam in the car.
Then it was about the safety of the car, as no marshaller wanted to touch it to lash it, to load it onto the truck and transport it back to the workshop.
Only when a specially qualified team member had given the all-clear with a device to measure a possible electrical discharge, the car could finally be evacuated and the track turned green again only six minutes before the end.
As a new race track on the calendar, on which all of the bar home heroes Max Verstappen hadn’t ridden the current, revised configuration with its lean angle in turn three and the last corner, the time on the track was crucial to make the 2.6-mile and 14 -Curve layout to understand.
The lost time was not what one would have wished for, but given the situation in front of overcrowded stands full of Verstappen fans dressed in orange, it was a fact that everyone could not control.
When the green flag was shown, it was Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton who topped the timesheets by just 0.097 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Verstappen, with a one-minute time of 11,500 seconds.
The duo still managed a total of 17 laps, two less than Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who was third fastest ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc, 0.101 and 0.123 seconds behind Hamilton.
The Brit’s team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, was five tenths of a second behind him.
Fernando Alonso in his Alpine was more than four tenths of a second ahead of the Spaniard in front of his teammate Esteban Ocon.
The top 10 were completed by Antonio Giovinazzi from Alfa Romeo, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and AlphaTauris Pierre Gasly, the latter a second behind.
Lando Norris, pushed off the track and onto the grass by Ocon in the final moments, was 11th, 1,179 seconds back.
Vettel managed a total of only six laps and was 19th in the time table, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda in his AlphaTauri, who couldn’t set time after an early spin and didn’t return.
Results of the first training session at the Dutch Grand Prix
1. Lewis Hamilton [Mercedes] 1: 11,500
2. Max Verstappen [Red Bull] +0.097
3. Carlos Sainz [Ferrari] +0.101
4. Charles Leclerc [Ferrari] +0.123
5. Valtteri Bottas [Mercedes] +0.238
6. Fernando Alonso [Alpine] +0.658
7. Esteban Ocon [Alpine] +0.731
8. Antonio Giovinazzi [Alfa Romeo] +0.859
9. Lance walk [Aston Martin] +0.931
10. Pierre Gasly [AlphaTauri] +1,015
11. Lando Norris [McLaren] +1.179
12. Nicholas Latifi [Williams] +1,407
13. Kimi Raikkonen [Alfa Romeo] +1,553
14. Daniel Ricciardo [McLaren] +1,581
15. George Russell [Williams] +1,681
16. Sergio Perez [Red Bull] +1,828
17. Nikita Mazepin [Haas] +2,016
18. Mick Schumacher [Haas] +2,347
19. Sebastian Vettel [Aston Martin] +4,484
20. Yuki Tsunoda [AlphaTauri] No time
The post Vettel becomes a firefighter with an uncertain Aston Martin as Hamilton leads the Dutch GP training opener first appeared on monter-une-startup.
