Ferrari and Mercedes moved significantly closer to Red Bull in Friday’s practice sessions for the Dutch Grand Prix, and could challenge the championship leaders for pole position in qualifying on Saturday.
The Scuderia set the fastest times of the day with Charles Leclerc narrowly beating team-mate Carlos Sainz to top spot in the late afternoon session, while earlier in the day Russell led from Hamilton for the Silver Arrows as both teams delivered significantly more impressive speed than they did in Belgium a week ago.
Red Bull were way down the order in both sessions as they struggled to find the right balance in the setup of their car for the narrow, old-school Zandvoort circuit which features two steep banked corners in its position on the windy North Sea coastline.
Furthermore, runaway championship leader Max Verstappen’s running was curtailed after just seven laps in the first session of the day due to a gearbox failure. The home favorite’s car began to make strange noises on oscillation as it entered Turn 1 on the hard tyres, before the gearbox completely gave up as he shifted between fourth and fifth, leaving car and driver stranded on the circuit with a red flag stoppage required.
FP1 results at Dutch Grand Prix
- George Russell—1:12.455
- Lewis Hamilton – +0.240
- Carlos Sainz – +0.390
- Lando Norris – +0.474
- Daniel Ricciardo – +0.622
- Charles Leclerc – +0.672
- Sergio Perez – +0.961
- Fernando Alonso – +1,178
- Esteban Ocon – +1,508
- Alex Albon – +1,608
- Mick Schumacher – +1,708
- Lance Stroll – +1,802
- Kevin Magnussen – +1,950
- Pierre Gasly – +2.019
- Sebastian Vettel – +2,045
- Zhou Guanyu – +2,079
- Yuki Tsunoda – +2,175
- Valtteri Bottas – +2,240
- Max Verstappen – +2,259
- Nicholas Latifi – +2,667
The raucous home crowd, in possession of their traditional orange smoke bombs, had created a party atmosphere at the Dutch circuit but their joyousness was curtailed as their hero trudged back into the pits and was forced to watch the rest of the session from the garage.
Red Bull conducted a change of gearbox on Verstappen’s RB18, which is within the allotted amount for the season but could potentially cost them a grid penalty further down the line, but in FP2 he still struggled to compete at the top of the order and finished the day just under seven-tenths of a second behind leader Leclerc.
With Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez also far down the order, the Milton Keynes-based squad will be desperate to iron out their setup in order to close the gap in Saturday’s practice session before qualifying begins later in the afternoon.
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“[Verstappen] lost drive in the shift from fourth to fifth,” Horner told Sky Sports. “With Checo he usually feels his way to an FP1 and goes from there. He wasn’t happy with certain things on the car, so I think there’ll be a few setup tweaks with him and his engineering team.
“There’s still eight races to go, and you can see from this session anything can happen. We have to keep our heads down, keep doing what we’ve been doing this year, and then the championship tables will take care of themselves. We’re taking it one race at a time.”
Verstappen was keen to move from a difficult day on track.
“We had such little grip on that hard tyre, and then [with the gearbox failure] you’re a session behind,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “We went into FP2 and the balance wasn’t great, but in an hour’s session you can’t change the car a lot. That wasn’t great today. For sure we can do better than this.”
Ferrari’s pace seems to have returned on a track which is significantly different from Spa, where they struggled last time out, with the team seemingly finding more success on a circuit which relies far less on straight line speed. The Scuderia have tended to challenge on Saturdays before fading behind Red Bull on Sundays, though, so their pace advantage right now does not necessarily render them favorites to win the race.
FP2 results at Dutch Grand Prix
- Charles Leclerc-1:12.345
- Carlos Sainz – +0.004
- Lewis Hamilton – +0.072
- Lando Norris – +0.103
- George Russell – +0.310
- Lance Stroll – +0.401
- Fernando Alonso – +0.503
- Max Verstappen – +0.697
- Esteban Ocon – +0.960
- Daniel Ricciardo – +1.017
- Yuki Tsunoda – +1,074
- Sergio Perez – +1,148
- Mick Schumacher – +1,259
- Sebastian Vettel – +1.266
- Zhou Guanyu – +1,279
- Pierre Gasly – +1,321
- Alexander Albon – +1,492
- Valtteri Bottas – +1,822
- Kevin Magnussen – +1,937
- Nicholas Latifi – +2,452
Mercedes, meanwhile, will already be concentrating their development efforts on their 2023 machinery having not been able to challenge for a race victory all season long, but were right on the pace on Friday in the Netherlands and could replicate the pole position they earned with George Russell at the similarly tight and twisty Hungaroring at the end of July.
Hamilton was pleased with Mercedes’ performance, but also discussed his team’s ability to be closer to the front at some circuits but not at others between sessions.
“This is a lot better than last week,” the seven-time world champion said. “It’s been a decent start to the weekend, we’re in a much sweeter spot with the car. It’s work in progress but we’re not that far behind and the car doesn’t feel that bad. We’ll keep chipping away.
“You want a car that works on every single track you go to, and the Red Bull seems to work in the majority of places. It’s understanding why, and working into next year’s car whatever the aerodynamic balance is and making sure the cars work everywhere. There’s loads of bits of this car we would change.”
