The Friday in F1 Dutch GP was hectic where McLaren ruled the timesheets where Aston Martin ended up being their closest rivals, amid incidents for several.
It was a hectic start of F1 season after summer break on Friday in Dutch GP at Zandvoort. Almost everyone struggled for grip on a green track as both FP1 and FP2 saw several incidents and spins, which included a big one for Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in the second session.
Even though the McLaren F1 pair had a gravel or grass moment, both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri still had good enough pace to lead the way, especially the Brit, who was fastest in both the sessions. The Australian backed his teammate but missed the bus in FP2, where he was third.
They seem to be in their own league, with the likes of Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari not close enough. It was George Russell and Max Verstappen, who looked closest to McLaren, but still more than half a second off. The latter still has underlaying issues with the car like the previous rounds.
Teammate Yuki Tsunoda felt better on one lap, but race pace presented limitations. Russell, meanwhile, was surprised by pace of some of his rivals. He felt good but was still down on McLaren. Teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s extra push led to a FP1 crash, but ran fine in FP2.
The Ferrari F1 duo was not happy. Charles Leclerc noted that they were losing in two corners and even though FP2 was better, they are still off the pace they want to be. It was same for Lewis Hamilton, who had two separate spins in FP1 and FP2, where he admitted to pushing a lot for spin in the first one.
Norris: “Today was a good day. You get back into things quite quickly, so it doesn’t take too long. The car was handling quite well. I feel like we’ve made some good improvements from FP1 to FP2, but at the same time, it seemed like the others caught up a bit more than what we would like. Even the Aston and Fernando were quick in FP1 and FP2 and have been recently, so a good start, but certainly a bit closer than we would like for the time being. It’s still meant to rain tomorrow and there’s still a chance of rain on Sunday. It actually would have been nice to get some wet laps in today to prepare a little bit for tomorrow, so it’ll be more exciting tomorrow.”
Verstappen: “I think it will be hard enough to be in that top five it looks like. Still struggling with the same things and again we tried a lot of things with the car but it just doesn’t really seem to change anything in terms of my underlying problem. We’ll look over night to find a bit more but I’m not going to expect a massive turnaround. It’s just tricky, plus the layout of the track also probably doesn’t suit our problems that we have with the car.”
Russell: “I felt good out there, to be honest. It was great to be back driving again after a couple of weeks out. Conditions for everybody were really tricky. It was really windy and this circuit has a lot of 180-degree corners so, when it is windy and gusty, the car is going through that whole phase of the corner, so it’s more exposed than on other circuits, maybe like Silverstone, where it’s a little bit in and out of the corners – I hope that makes some sort of sense! But, [in terms of] competitiveness, maybe not quite as close to the front as we’d like, but the race pace looks okay, sort of in the usual mix. These last couple of races have been really surprising. Aston had a really bad run of form, and then they were really on it in Hungary and they had a great result.
“Here they look fast. Ferrari have seemed really off the pace today, but I’m sure that can turn very quickly as well, and same with Max. He had a tough race in Hungary, but I think that was more of an outlier. So, as it stands, it looks like a bit of a fight with the Astons, with Max and with ourselves, but I’m sure Ferrari will get in there. The pitlane incident, I think he pulled in a bit too early and pulled back out. A bit unfortunate but it scared me a bit! When you’re on track you’re ready for anything, but when you’re in the pit lane going relatively very slow, you’re just chilling out. I was looking at my screen and I was like, ‘Geez!’ It caught me by surprise!”
Antonelli: “I was pushing pretty hard early on in FP1 and then I locked up, and then I got beached and my session was over after just one lap. It was obviously not ideal because I lost some mileage and didn’t do any laps basically. In FP2 I kind of had to build my rhythm. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but we know where to improve and now looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll see how the weather’s going to be, but if it’s going to be dry we’ll try to improve those few things, and then I think it was a decent session. Of course there were quite a few mistakes during the lap, but we’ll try to be ready for tomorrow.”
Hamilton: “It’s not been the worst of days. I think we were making progress. We were obviously quite far off in FP1, a lot further than normal. The first lap felt pretty decent, getting back, and it was a bit of a challenge from then. We made some progress over lunch, so we progressed but were still quite a chunk off. We’ve got some work to do overnight. I think the first one was just pushing too much. I think we ultimately said the ride quality was not where we would want it, because the car was quite unpredictable. The second one, I touched the grass and had a snap, and that was that. I was pushing, which is positive, I guess. Hopefully, no more.”
Leclerc: “I would sum it up as a very, very, very difficult Friday – probably the worst Friday of the season, which is right after the holidays, so it’s a bit of a wake-up call. We’ve had some difficult Fridays and now it’s up to us to turn the situation around. But for sure, it’s not been an easy day. FP1 was extremely difficult. FP2 was slightly better but still very far off where we want to be. I don’t expect to fully return the situation, because I think McLaren is in a league of its own with Aston Martin, in what was a surprise for us.
“We’ll try to improve the car, because there is plenty to be done. I don’t know. It’s a very strange season. I would never have said that I would be on pole in Budapest, so I don’t really want to fix myself targets today, because after what was a very difficult weekend, it’s not very exciting targets. I’m looking forward to trying to turn the situation around and trying to make a miracle tomorrow, but it’s not going to be an easy weekend.”
As the McLaren F1 pair noted along with others, Aston Martin surprised everyone. Fernando Alonso was second in FP2 – just 0.087s behind. He backed his FP1 performance, as teammate Lance Stroll was up there, finishing third in FP1. He made a slight error for a big shunt in FP2.
But they both were happy with their performance. Even the Williams F1 pair were pleased with the pace they had in their car. Carlos Sainz couldn’t set a proper lap time on the soft compound in FP2, but noted that he had good pace. Despite his off in FP2, Alexander Albon was happy with the car.
All four Mercedes-powered F1 teams had a better run, with Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg showing some pace across the sessions. The German had a ‘normal’ Friday, as did teammate Gabriel Bortoleto. It was not the same for Visa Cash App RB drivers, where Isack Hadjar faced power unit issues.
He managed to get through FP1, but despite a change in FP2, he couldn’t complete a single lap. Teammate Liam Lawson felt good in the car, but couldn’t extract the maximum. Alpine’s Franco Colapinto enjoyed a Top 10 finish in FP2, with pace at hand.
Teammate Pierre Gasly couldn’t complete a soft tyre run in FP2, but like Colapinto, felt better in the car. They are unsure of a Q3 finish, even though they have the aim for it. Haas’ Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman reckoned they made progress from FP1 to FP2, which is a positive step.
Alonso: “I do. For sure a little bit more optimistic than some of the other Fridays we did. Hungary was strong for us, we go into the following race at Zandvoort and we’re still showing some good pace in free practice. We know it’s only free practice but it’s good to see our times up there and let’s see what we can do tomorrow. No, not really. I don’t think it’s within our reach to fight with the McLarens but maybe some of the top teams, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, they seem not too far away so we will try to be in that mix.”
Hulkenberg: “It was a fairly typical Friday for us – nothing out of the ordinary. Overall, we’re reasonably satisfied with how things went today. Conditions were a bit tricky at times, especially with the looming threat of rain, so staying clean and in control was important, and we did that throughout both sessions. The field is incredibly tight once again, so every detail counts. Now it’s about fine-tuning and digging into the data to find those last gains before tomorrow.”
Ocon: “Today was a pretty decent day, especially with the step we made in FP2. For me, it was a very disrupted session, and we did our lap on quite used tyres so it wasn’t the perfect session, but I think in terms of car performance, we made a good improvement, and we should be happy with that. The rain was supposed to come today which it didn’t, so that was a bit of a surprise, but I think it’s a bit more consistent for the next days, so the focus is on the dry.”
Gasly: “It is great to be back in the car here in Zandvoort. Today was very much stop-start with some interruptions and red flags out there across both sessions. Still, we were able to have a decent feeling for how the car was behaving. On our Soft tyre run in Free Practice 2, I was happy with what we learnt even if we had traffic and the lap time was ultimately unrepresentative. We have a few things to fine tune on balance as usual but we have a good baseline to work with. Some cars are out of our league, we can’t be too sure where we stand currently, but our focus is just on getting the car into a good place and extracting the most from it. We will see what that looks like tomorrow when it all counts.”
Albon: “It’s easy to get caught around here with the gusts of wind but fortunately, it seems to only be the front wing that was damaged, so the car is looking okay. We hit the ground running in FP1 and we then made some changes going into FP2, but we didn’t get enough laps in to test if they worked or not. Looking at tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind rain, but I don’t think we have a bad car either, so we’ll focus on what we can improve overnight and set our sights on Q3 tomorrow.”
Stroll: “Just a little lock-up and from there I was just a passenger. Just one of those things. For sure, we looked competitive throughout the day and again Fernando in FP2. I think we’re in a good spot and see what we can do tomorrow.”
Hadjar: “We had some sensor issues with the PU in FP1, so we decided to change both the battery and the PU before heading out again in FP2. I went out a little delayed, but while I was out on track the team were not happy with how the battery was performing, so they asked me to stop the car. Hopefully, everything will be resolved by tomorrow. I wish I could have had more running today, but with FP3, I should get enough practice to be ready for qualifying.”
Here’s incidents on Friday: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-gp-fp2-every-spill-spin-and-crash-from-friday-practice-at-zandvoort.1841816229399963928