Practice report

F1 Dutch GP: Russell heads FP2 from Piastri with Verstappen in fifth

Russell tops second practice at Zandvoort in a session temporarily halted by Hulkenberg’s crash

Mercedes’ George Russell led McLaren driver Oscar Piastri in a crash interrupted FP2 for Formula 1’s Dutch Grand Prix, with home hero Max Verstappen down in fifth.

Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris finished in third and fourth respectively, while in the other Red Bull Sergio Perez did not break into the top 10 and Ferrari suffered a reliability scare for Carlos Sainz.

In marked contrast to the wet and wild conditions that kicked off FP1, clear blue skies greeted the pack for the day’s second one-hour session, where Alpine’s Pierre Gasly led the cars out of the pits.

All the early running was done on the medium or hard tyres, with Verstappen’s opening 1m12.131s on the mediums staying as the benchmark for the first quarter, during which many drivers locked up at Tarzan where a strong tailwind was making running tricky.

Shortly after he had pitted from a second run on a new set of mediums following a near dramatic off at Scheivlak, Hamilton forged ahead on a 1m11.833s.

The session was then suspended when Nico Hulkenberg spun off backwards at Tarzan – the rear wheels of his Haas locking suddenly as he braked and sent him to into an accident that crumped the right-hand side of the German’s car.

The wreckage was removed during a subsequent six-minute delay, after which Verstappen reappeared for an early qualifying simulation effort on the softs.

He duly took back the top time with a 1m10.986s despite a lap where the home hero’s RB20 looked skittish throughout, but with Norris having also gone for a swift switch to the softs post-restart, the McLaren driver then nipped ahead on a 1m10.961s.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Erik Junius

A few minutes later, Piastri demoted his team-mate to second with a 1m10.763s, before Russell took over with a 1m10.702s – despite running hard over the exit kerbs at the final corner.

Hamilton then slotted into third 0.111s down on the leading Mercedes, before Charles Leclerc completed Ferrari’s sole soft-tyre run of the day on the far side of the session’s halfway point.

This was only good enough for ninth behind Fernando Alonso, who ended up trailing Verstappen once the Dutchman had been shuffled back, Yuki Tsunoda and Kevin Magnussen.

Alex Albon rounded out the top 10 for Williams, followed by Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez in the second Aston Martin and Red Bull cars respectively.

After this, the field rapidly switched to long-run data gathering, with the weather forecast for the rest of the weekend mixed on Saturday and drier on Sunday – the wind in particular likely to be much weaker come race day – therefore placing a premium on understanding tyre degradation even more than is typically the case in an FP2 session.

Ferrari did not get any further lower fuel look on the softs other than Leclerc’s mid-session effort, as Sainz had exited from proceedings after the early laps due to a suspected gearbox issue aboard his SF-24.

Two incidents of likely pitstop unsafe releases – involving Zhou Guanyu and Daniel Ricciardo, and Albon and Stroll – will be investigated post-session.

F1 Dutch GP - FP2 results

1 - 2
Cla	Driver	#	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	G. Russell Mercedes	63	Mercedes	Mercedes	30	1'10.702		216.859
2	O. Piastri McLaren	81	McLaren	Mercedes	33	+0.061 1'10.763	0.061	216.672
3	L. Hamilton Mercedes	44	Mercedes	Mercedes	30	+0.111 1'10.813	0.050	216.519
4	L. Norris McLaren	4	McLaren	Mercedes	34	+0.259 1'10.961	0.148	216.067
5	M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing	1	Red Bull	Red Bull	33	+0.284 1'10.986	0.025	215.991
6	F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing	14	Aston Martin	Mercedes	30	+0.655 1'11.357	0.371	214.868
7	Y. Tsunoda RB	22	RB	Red Bull	31	+0.672 1'11.374	0.017	214.817
8	K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team	20	Haas	Ferrari	33	+0.728 1'11.430	0.056	214.649
9	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16	Ferrari	Ferrari	31	+0.741 1'11.443	0.013	214.610
10	A. Albon Williams	23	Williams	Mercedes	33	+0.848 1'11.550	0.107	214.289
11	L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing	18	Aston Martin	Mercedes	31	+0.874 1'11.576	0.026	214.211
12	S. Perez Red Bull Racing	11	Red Bull	Red Bull	29	+0.879 1'11.581	0.005	214.196
13	D. Ricciardo RB	3	RB	Red Bull	31	+0.928 1'11.630	0.049	214.049
14	P. Gasly Alpine	10	Alpine	Renault	33	+0.942 1'11.644	0.014	214.008
15	L. Sargeant Williams	2	Williams	Mercedes	32	+1.116 1'11.818	0.174	213.489
16	Z. Guanyu Sauber	24	Sauber	Ferrari	33	+1.232 1'11.934	0.116	213.145
17	E. Ocon Alpine	31	Alpine	Renault	33	+1.359 1'12.061	0.127	212.769
18	V. Bottas Sauber	77	Sauber	Ferrari	32	+1.504 1'12.206	0.145	212.342
19	C. Sainz Ferrari	55	Ferrari	Ferrari	7	+2.406 1'13.108	0.902	209.722
20	N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team	27	Haas	Ferrari	10	+2.594 1'13.296	0.188	209.184
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