Close Friday times indicate Red Bull face a fight for pole

The first day of practice at the end of the summer break is always one of the most fascinating of any F1 season.

Inevitably, the biggest question was always going to be whether anyone had managed to gain back ground against the dominant Red Bulls – especially as they had been, quite literally, a mile ahead of the rest of the field at the end of the last round at Spa-Francorchamps.

But at the end of Friday at Zandvoort, it was not the world champion who was quickest, nor his Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez. Instead, Lando Norris put McLaren at the top of the times after a frantic second session, relegating the local hero to second place – albeit just two-hundredths of a second behind.

Sandwiched between two of the fastest circuits on the calendar – Spa and Monza – Zandvoort shares little of the characteristics of those other two historic F1 staples. It is an intensely compact circuit, with a narrow track, lap times lasting just over 70 seconds and barely any straights to allow drivers to rest between turns. Calling for high downforce set up to get the car through the many twists and turns as rapidly as possible, Zandvoort may well be helping to hide some of the remaining weaknesses of the MCL60.

“It was a reasonable day,” said Norris. “A nice way to end, in terms of position.

“I think we got in a good rhythm and found a reasonable balance with the car. We’re looking good on low fuel, but we’ve got a bit of work to do on high fuel, so that’s our target tonight.”

In the Red Bull, Verstappen had some complaints about the balance of his car being “weird” – but that is hardly a rare occurrence during the opening days of a race weekend this season. What was interesting about how close his and Norris’s best laps during the second session was where the two drivers varied through the lap.

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Norris was a tenth faster than the Red Bull through the opening sector of their fastest push laps, until Verstappen gained that back through the middle sector by carrying more speed that the McLaren through the consecutive sequence of turns. But from the tight left-hander of turn 11 through to the end of the lap, Norris had the edge – a striking demonstration of the differences in the two cars.

“I think they look quick,” Verstappen admitted when asked about the McLaren. “On any tyre.

“For sure we know that, in qualifying especially, a few teams can fight us sometimes – and we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Lewis Hamilton took fourth behind, surprisingly, the Williams of Alexander Albon. But Mercedes have good reason to feel happy with where they stand. Hamilton admitted the team’s set-up changes for the second session had not worked out in their favour, but his demeanour was far brighter than the last Friday at a high-downforce circuit – the Hungaroring – where he ended the first day down in 16th before taking pole position 24 hours later. Asked where he saw Mercedes compared to Red Bull and McLaren on Saturday, Hamilton replied “right with them, hopefully.”

“I think the Red Bull’s a little bit quick as always,” Hamilton said, “so I don’t necessarily anticipate we’ll easily be able to beat them. But I think we’re going to be close.”

Hamilton’s team mate George Russell pointed out that Mercedes took the fight to Verstappen in the race here last year but had not been very far up the grid in doing so. With overtaking limited around the narrow and twisty circuit, Russell is eager to ensure Mercedes start from a stronger position on Sunday.

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“We need to make sure we seal a good result – ideally in the top five, he said. “That will set us up really nicely for Sunday, because we know we’ve got a faster race car.”

While McLaren and Mercedes seem bullish, Aston Martin and Ferrari were both conspicuous by their absence from the top of the times. Lance Stroll, who missed first practice with a power unit problem, was the highest placed of the four in eighth. Both Ferrari drivers finished outside of the top ten. Charles Leclerc admitted his team’s Friday had been “not great”.

“We’ve had quite a few difficulties,” he accepted. “FP1 was really difficult, FP2 went in the right direction but we still need to do a step forward for tomorrow.

“Having said that, everybody is so close that if you improve from two, three tenths, we are basically third or fourth or something like this.”

Team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr saw a pattern when thinking back to the last time the team fitted its high-downforce configuration for a race weekend.

“When we go to higher-downforce tracks, for some reason we don’t pick up as much downforce as maybe the others when we’re going to the bigger real wings,” Sainz explained. “And now we need to find out and we are trying to find out why. So a bit of homework to do on our side to see why when we go to these higher-downforce tracks we seem to slide more than the others.”

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Qualifying sessions have been historically tight throughout 2023 so far, but with the top 16 cars on Friday separated by less than eight tenths of a second that could be especially true this weekend. While Red Bull have been unbeatable on Sundays, they have been far from untouchable in qualifying.

But throw in an increased traffic hazard around such a short and narrow circuit where grass and gravel traps await any mistake and the potential for rain to even affect things further, none of the tens of thousands of Verstappen fans who flock to the circuit should expect an easy third home pole for the world champion.

“I think it’s going to be very close come tomorrow,” Norris said.

“It’s a short track – what, 1’12, 1’11?. It’ll probably be 1’10s or something tomorrow. So it’s going to be very tight, but between many people. You have the Williams there, Alpine are there, AlphaTauris are there – so it’s just going to be a scrap.”

“It’s gonna be tough, but we can stay there. Just no mistakes.”

Combined practice times

Position	Number	Driver	Team	FP1 time	FP2 time	Gap	Laps
1	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’12.460	1’11.330		51
2	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’11.852	1’11.353	0.023	55
3	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’12.447	1’11.599	0.269	55
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’12.225	1’11.638	0.308	50
5	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’12.749	1’11.720	0.390	51
6	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	1’12.895	1’11.766	0.436	58
7	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’12.323	1’11.817	0.487	55
8	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	No time	1’11.835	0.505	33
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’13.448	1’11.857	0.527	59
10	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’12.130	1’11.863	0.533	52
11	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’13.519	1’11.915	0.585	54
12	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	1’12.617	1’11.934	0.604	60
13	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’12.802	1’12.001	0.671	57
14	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’12.813	1’12.009	0.679	50
15	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’13.826	1’12.074	0.744	49
16	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari		1’12.093	0.763	31
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’13.322	1’12.404	1.074	56
18	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	1’12.658	1’12.901	1.328	25
19	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	1’14.023	1’12.693	1.363	44
20	3	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’12.990	1’13.096	1.660	32
21	39	Robert Shwartzman	Ferrari	1’14.803		3.473	24

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Teams’ progress vs 2022

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2023 Dutch Grand Prix

• Azerbaijan GP defeat was key to record-equalling run of wins – Verstappen
• “Too early to say” if podium signals return to form for Aston Martin – Alonso
• Verstappen makes history with unbeaten hat-track in first home races
• Perez is ‘doing his job and will be our driver in 2024’, Horner insists
• Ferrari had the “sixth or seventh fastest car” at Zandvoort – Sainz

Browse all 2023 Dutch Grand Prix articles