Leclerc finishes on top with Sainz Jr. next as Verstappen takes fifth, Vettel tenth, and Hamilton eleventh.
ZANDVOORT, The Netherlands—Ferrari has struggled on most tracks this season. But on Friday afternoon, the Scuderia found its rhythm on this tight, twisty circuit. Charles Leclerc set the fastest time of the day for this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, clocking a 1:10:902 ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon took third.
Even before the afternoon session took place, there was a delay before the drivers could return to the track.
The 10-minute delay could have helped Lewis Hamilton, who only took three laps once the session started. An oil system failure, which caused a power loss, resulted in his Mercedes being pulled off the track at Tarza. The incident brought out the second of three red flag sessions so that the marshals could push the car out of the way. Despite that problem, Hamilton returned and managed to finish 11th overall.
With 26 minutes to go in the hour-long session, Haas F1’s Nikita Mazepin lost control into turn 11 and spun into the gravel. Another red flag period followed, which ended many drivers’ chances of getting a quicker lap time, including home hero Max Verstappen.
Issues continued when practice was delayed for nearly 37 minutes when Sebastian Vettel’s car encountered an engine problem.
Vettel stopped, moved to the back, and put out a fire that was occurring. Fearing that the electrical charge might still be on, track marshals did not want to assist, which meant it took even more time to deal with the matter. The Aston Martin crew and recovery truck arrived to assist, but the outcome was that only a few minutes were left in the session. Again, that made it difficult for the drivers to get a good lap and finish higher up on the grid.
When the racing day ended, Valtteri Bottas was the fourth fastest, with Verstappen taking fifth. Sixth went to Fernando Alonso in the Alpine, and Pierre Gasly in the Alpha Tauri was next in seventh. Lando Norris in the McLaren was eighth, Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi ninth, and Vettel–despite coming out late in the afternoon (the Aston Martin crew was repairing the damage from the opening session) still managed to get in a decent lap and ended up tenth.
The race for this weekend will have good weather, with warm temperatures expected for Sunday’s race. That’s welcome news for drivers and teams, given what they experienced last weekend in Belgium.
Views at The Sports Column 519
About Mark Gero
Mark began his addiction to Formula 1 racing watching races on the television at Watkins Glen and attending Grand Prix races in person at Long Beach, California in the 1970s and early 80s. Turning to the journalism side of motorsports in 2001, Mark started by writing Grand Prix weekend stories for San Diego, California based All-Sports under Jerry Preeper. He left one year later for E-Sports in Florida. Mark’s big break came when he wrote for the late Mike Hollander at Racing Services. Then, in 2010, he joined Racingnation for three seasons. For the remaining part of this decade, Mark continued to advance, writing articles for the Munich Eye Newspaper in Munich, Germany, and returning to the U.S. to finish his degree in Journalism and Mass Communications at Ashford University. After graduating, Mark was hired by Autoweek before moving on to the racing website, Frontstretch, until late last year. Mark currently lives in Los Angeles, California.
