Friday Report - Mercedes and McLaren fastest

George Russell
© Mercedes

Mercedes and McLaren monopolised the first four places of FP2 for the Dutch Grand Prix, relegating local hero Max Verstappen to a disappointing fifth place. With a completely dry track and the wind subsiding, all teams tried to compress as big a program as possible into this session, particularly as FP3 is likely to be run in wet conditions, so apart from Sainz and Hulkenberg, who hit trouble, everyone completed at least 30 laps during the session.

George Russell beat Oscar Piastri to the fastest time by just 0.061s with their respective team mates in close proximity. Hamilton was third quickest ahead of Norris the two teams looking even matched on one lap pace and marginally faster than Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Russell’s session was not completely straightforward, the british driver having an early off in Turn 9 that flat spotted the left front tyre of his set of Medium compound tyres. Piastri’s only issue came right at the start of the session, when he was forced to pit after just one lap to swap helmets due to a problem with his original visor.

For Max Verstappen the session was not an easy one. The Dutchman set a blistering pace on his first flying lap with the Medium tyres but then didn’t progress at all as his rivals improved later in the session. A big moment into Turn 9 confirmed his fears that the rear of the RB20 was too nervous even for his liking, so he immediately pitted for a set-up change. On the Soft tyre the Dutch driver was unable to match the Mercedes and McLaren drivers and things didn’t get better for him on the long runs.

Being on track at the same time as Lando Norris and both on the Medium compound tyres, Verstappen was unable to match the McLaren driver’s lap times and also suffered much bigger degradation. An early return to the Soft tyres was more promising, but, again, degradation was higher than normal, so Red Bull has quite a bit of work to do overnight to help the Verstappen get into the battle for the win. Pérez was, again, only 12th fastest, an off early on in Turn 1 costing him little track time but affecting his confidence, as he was almost 0.6s slower than Verstappen in the qualifying simulation.

Mercedes and McLaren looked evenly matched on the long runs as well, Piastri and Russell doing long stints on the Soft compound while Hamilton and Norris ran essentially with the Medium compound. All four drivers could do longer stints than Verstappen without their tyes going off as much, so we could be in for a five-way battle for the win on Sunday.

Ferrari was disappointed after the session and with reasons to be concerned. Leclerc was only 9th quickest but found traffic that cost him 0.25s on his qualifying run. The gap to the front, however, was over 0.7s, so it’s clear the SF-24 is not on the same pace as its rivals this weekend. To make matters worse, Sainz’s session was cut short due to an hydraulic leak that caused the gearbox to stop working, so the Spaniard never got to try the soft tyres and low fuel configuration.

Fernando Alonso was best of the rest in P6, beating a very promising Yuki Tsunoda and an on form Kevin Magnussen. The Spaniard, who was second here in 2023 looked quite happy with the balance of his car and, as usual when the AMR24 is competitive, was way faster than Stroll, who ended up just outside the top ten. While Tsunoda was very competitive, Ricciardo struiggled and was down in P13 and at Haas it was Hulkenberg in trouble, a spin early on in the first corner putting him out of the session on the spot.