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Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen took pole position at his home Grand Prix amid a sea of orange-sporting supporters, narrowly beating out Charles Leclerc by just two hundredths of a second in Zandvoort. 

Q1: Track Evolution and Shock Eliminations

A warm, sunny day in Zandvoort sets the scene for Qualifying, as the likes of Haas F1 Team, Williams Racing and Alfa Romeo Racing take to the track to put in some early laps. 

Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team made an early impression, coming out on top of the timesheets before the frontrunning teams made their appearances, with Lance Stroll in first and Sebastian Vettel in second. They were followed by Guanyu Zhou, both Haas cars, Valterri Bottas, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly and Nicholas Latifi— rounding out the group of early runners. Yuki Tsunoda saw his first time get deleted. 

Verstappen made his first attempt and quickly shot to the top of the board, followed by the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo sit in fifth and sixth with ten minutes to go. Aston Martin and Haas both remain in the top ten, as well as Zhou. 

Lando Norris completed his first lap and rose to third place, splitting the Ferraris. Norris was noted for an unsafe release in the session’s first minutes, cutting off Tsunoda as he left the pits.  Mercedes AMG-Petronas F1 Team took second and third with their first laps, and the late-joining BWT Alpine F1 Team put in their first times soon after, with Fernando Alonso making a quick run for fourth. Alonso’s team-mate, Esteban Ocon, cracked the top ten with his first attempt as well. 

The FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 championships will partner with Aramco and introduce sustainable fuels from the 2023 season, it was announced on Friday.

With the FIA Formula 1 World Championship bringing in 100% sustainable fuels from 2026, the two major single seater supporting categories will follow suit but from next season, with the FIA aiming for a carbon neutral sport by 2030.

Next year will see both championships run with 55% sustainable fuels before it increases each year incrementally up until 2027, when it will become 100%.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the FIA President, has welcomed the news that Aramco will partner with both Formula 2 and Formula 3 going forward to provide sustainable fuels, with the change helping the sport tackle climate change.

“Sustainability is at the top of the global motor sport agenda, and it is vital to see this work not only going on in Formula 1, but also in Formula 2, Formula 3 and throughout the entire ecosystem,” said Ben Sulayem.  

Charles Leclerc goes into qualifying later this afternoon for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Dutch Grand Prix in the best way possible, as the five-time race winner ended Free Practice 3 ahead of George Russell by the narrowest of margins.

Despite the two red flags we saw yesterday, there seemed to be a lack of urgency when it came to heading out onto the track. However, the slow start to the session didn’t deter Max Verstappen from flying out of the garage and clearing Ferrari’s F1-75 by half a second and exceeding his best time in yesterday’s Free Practice Two, setting a lap time of 1.12.309.

Scuderia Ferrari were quick to pick up their pace as Leclerc slotted in to take second place, setting a timed lap five tenths off of the current World Champion’s opening lap, with his teammate Carlos Sainz a further two tenths behind.

By the end of the first run, the grid looked very different. Leclerc’s car was surrounded by Ferrari engineers mid-way through the session, despite them insisting there was “no issue” and Leclerc set the fastest time of 1.11.632 on the soft compound tyres with 14 minutes left.

George Russell went second for Mercedes AMG Petronas, falling short of first position by 0.066s, whilst Verstappen, who held an early benchmark at the beginning of practice came in third and wound up 0.161s off Leclerc’s pace.

After dominating the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend in emphatic fashion, the Dutchman’s home Grand Prix certainly hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts.

The reigning World Champion was cheered on by a sea of orange on Friday at Zandvoort, where the travelling supporters will have been disappointed by how little they saw of Verstappen in Free Practice One. The Dutch driver sat out the majority of the morning session after coming to a halt early on in the morning. Verstappen’s RB18 grinded to a stop on the circuit, with a suspected gearbox issue the cause.

It meant the championship leader was making up for lost time in the afternoon; however, the second session of the day also failed to go accordingly to plan. Verstappen complained about the balance of the car, which he said “wasn’t great”. Oracle Red Bull Racing face the need for a drastic improvement on Saturday, with the Dutchman ending the day in eighth.

Verstappen is hoping that a few changes will result in better performance, with the Red Bull ace not “surprised” by his position.

“We missed out on valuable time in FP1 and then the balance wasn’t great in FP2. In an hour-long session you can’t really change much on the car, so we just had to deal with what we had. Today wasn’t great but we’ll have a look at everything overnight, for sure we can do better than this. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the time difference, there are a lot of things that we can improve on, we’ve got FP3 tomorrow morning to try out a few things ahead of qualifying.”

Artur Ardavichus has been in hot water with the Kazakhstani authorities for his rally raid excursions. Since 2020, Ardavichus is one of various figures under investigation by the Kazakh Anti-Corruption Agency, stemming from the Astana Presidential Sports Club embezzling two billion Kazakhstani tenge (slightly over €4.26 million) allocated by the country’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna.

Last week, the Netherlands’ tax agency Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) raided a building in Hooge Zijde in Eindhoven that housed offices for EVM and Team de Rooy on Kazakhstan’s call. The two outfits previously fielded rides for Ardavichus in the Dakar Rally. The FIOD refused to comment further on the situation and referred to it answering a “request for mutual legal assistance”.

“We are part of a large investigation in Kazakhstan,” said Team de Rooy owner Gerard de Rooy. “Ardavichus had rented a car from us twice to be able to drive Dakar. He was the driver and Astana paid the bill. Astana has since been closed, but the money flows in several sports are being closely examined.

“We had to submit the contracts and invoices and we did. They took all these papers with them. I don’t know how it will go on. The contracts and invoices are supportive in the major investigation. The FIOD did this on behalf of Kazakhstan and has nothing else to do with it.”

EVN owner Peter Versluis pointed out police seized approximately “fifteen sheets of contracts, receipts, and some correspondence.”

Despite topping today’s second practice session, Scuderia Ferrari driver, Charles Leclerc, has stated that the team still has work to do if they are to contend for the race victory this weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix.

The Monegasque driver posted the sixth fastest time in first practice, just under seventh tenths of a second behind the fastest time set by George Russell.

However, come the second session around Zandvoort and Ferrari were starting to assert some dominance against the rest of the field. Leclerc topped the session by the narrowest of margins over his teammate, with a gap of just four-one-thousandths of a second separating the two.

Entering this weekend with eight races remaining in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, Leclerc is looking to reduce the sizeable gap between himself and Max Verstappen and after a strong first day, the advantage appears to be with Ferrari and Leclerc.

Speaking after today’s action out on track, Leclerc demanded that his team take the necessary steps forward over night to protect their advantage over Oracle Red Bull Racing in the early stages of the weekend.

Sebastian Vettel had a disappointing Friday as the Dutch GP roared into action. The four time FIA Formula 1 World Champion could only finish fifteenth and fourteenth in the two sessions, which will be disappointing for the German driver, who finished eight at the Belgium GP. However, with a long way to go to the race still, Vettel will be hoping to go into Saturday with a positive mindset.

Vettel will be looking to make the most of the remaining races after announcing he would be retiring from the sport earlier this year. This year hasn’t reached his extremely high standards as Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team have struggled to get consistent point finishes.

Despite a difficult day, Vettel believes there is positives in the car, most significantly their long-run pace.

“It was a bit of a tricky day for us today. Free Practice 1 was pretty busy, and there was plenty of traffic, but I never really felt on top of the car in either session. Looking at the times, I think our long-run pace looks pretty good, but we still need to focus on our single-lap pace.

The German is hoping that tomorrow will be a more successful day and the team can put in a strong showing in what could be a crucial qualifying session at a difficult circuit to overtake.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team kicked off their Dutch Grand Prix weekend in impressive fashion as George Russell was able to top the timesheet in first practice, while Lewis Hamilton was able to finish both sessions inside the top three.

Hamilton finished just over two-tenths of a second behind his teammate during the opening session of the weekend. The seven-time world champion was then able to finish over two and a half tenths ahead of Russell during second practice.

Mercedes struggled considerably with their one-lap pace in Spa last time out, before the strong race pace of the W13 was able to guide George Russell home for a fourth-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Trackside Engineering Director of the Brackley-based team, Andrew Shovlin, revealed that despite the strong showing today, the team would still need to work overnight to improve their performance on single laps and on the long runs.

Shovlin touched on how both drivers had not yet found the perfect balance of the W13, and with considerable work on the car and setup expected overnight, the team could challenge Scuderia Ferrari and Oracle Red Bull Racing in qualifying tomorrow.

After a weekend to forget at the Belgian Grand Prix, a promising start to this weekend has lead Lewis Hamilton to claim that his W13 is ‘in a much sweeter spot’ after the seven-time FIA Formula 1 World Champion finished both practice sessions for the Dutch Grand Prix inside the top three.

Hamilton finished first practice second fastest, just over two-tenths of a second behind his teammate George Russell, who led the first practice session of the weekend.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver took his positive start into second practice as he went third fastest of the session, behind both Scuderia Ferrari drivers.

With a strong start to the weekend under his belt, Hamilton was eager for his team to continue to chip away at extracting further performance out of the W13 overnight.

“This is a lot better than my Sunday last week and better than the Friday too. It’s been a decent start to the weekend, we’ve landed in a much sweeter spot with the car, just being a very different track.

McLaren’s F1 team’s Executive Director for racing, Andrea Stella, was pleased with the teams progress on the opening day of the Dutch Grand Prix, as they look to get back into the fight with the BWT Alpine F1 Team for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship this weekend.

Although, Daniel Ricciardo had some small issues, Stella still believes that the day was a good one for the team.

“Overall, we had a productive day. There were a few issues, most notably a radiator problem for Daniel which cut short his FP2 and, as a result, he missed the high-fuel run at the end of the session. That aside, the day went well.“

Stella spoke on the improvement from last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, where the Woking-based team failed to score a point in their fight with the Enstone-based side. McLaren will be hopeful of gaining some ground on Alpine at Zandvoort, with the circuit so far proving to be much more suited to them.

We have progressed our understanding of the tyres and set-up direction, and we seem to be in a better place than we were last weekend at Spa. We’re looking forward to Qualifying and the Race – but still have plenty of work to do overnight in order to be as competitive as we can be.”

The BWT Alpine F1 Team enjoyed a trouble-free Friday at the Circuit Zandvoort, and Matt Harman, the Technical Director at the Enstone-based squad, was pleased to see the updates they brought to the Netherlands appeared to be working.

Alpine are continuing their development of the A522 as they battle the McLaren F1 Team over fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, and the small changes they made to the car this weekend appeared to bring the performance improvements they were hoping for.

And Harman says the team still have some additional updates to come across the next few races as they remain determined to end the year fourth.

“Today was a trouble-free day of practice and we completed everything we intended to do with both cars,” said Harman.  “We’ve brought a couple of small upgrades here, which performed in line with our pre-race simulations, and that’s brought a bit of extra performance.

“It’s fantastic that we continue to bring upgrades to every race and there’s more to come at the next couple of races as well.”

Lando Norris had an impressive day at Zandvoort, finishing fourth and third in both Free Practice sessions respectively. Norris will be hoping that the team can close the gap to the BWT Alpine F1 Team, as they look to take control back of the battle for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

The British drivers believes that the track suits the car, and he will be hoping that they can take this momentum into the rest of the weekend.

“A reasonable day. I think with the different type of track we’re a little bit more back in line with where we’ve been in general – closer to the front, back in the midfield pack”

Norris will be hoping to add another podium to his season total of one, but that will be hard with the pace of the front runners.

“There are some positives. The car is handling reasonably well both in low fuel and high fuel. I think we’re in an okay position. It’s still close, both in front of us and behind us but if we can squeeze a bit more out of the car overnight, into qualifying tomorrow, then we can give ourselves a good chance of scoring decent points on Sunday.”

Fernando Alonso reckoned it was a strong opening day to the Dutch Grand Prix on Friday for the BWT Alpine F1 Team, with the Spaniard ending seventh fastest overall.

The Spaniard, who equalled his best finish of the season last weekend when he took fifth place in the Belgian Grand Prix, started by putting his A522 into eighth place in the opening hour of practice before improving in the afternoon to seventh.

Alonso says there was a lot of track evolution throughout the day at the Circuit Zandvoort, and it will be important for Alpine to take that into account when preparing for the rest of the weekend.

“It was a decent Friday for us,” said Alonso.  “It is a very different circuit to what we experienced last weekend in Spa.

“It’s a fun place to drive Formula 1 cars around, it’s like a rollercoaster with all of the bumps. The car feels good so far and I think we’ve seen a lot of track evolution today as it was quite dusty across the circuit this morning.

Charles Leclerc led Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr. and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team‘s Lewis Hamilton in the second free practice session of the weekend at the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Dutch Grand Prix.

Leclerc finished just 0.004s ahead of Sainz on a sunny Friday at Circuit Zandvoort, with the Mercedes of Hamilton a further 0.068s behind the leader.

The session was delayed by fifteen minutes after a red flag interrupted FIA Formula 2 qualifying session earlier in the afternoon. Many were left pondering upon the Oscar Piastri news following the announcement the he will be drive for the McLaren F1 Team in 2023, but people’s attentions quickly turned to free practice as it finally got underway.

Ferrari set the pace from the off ahead of Max Verstappen. Verstappen and his Oracle Red Bull Racing team though soon started to drop down the standings, with Mercedes and McLaren increasing their pace back to where it was in free practice one.

There was a stop in the session with not long to go as Scuderia AlphaTauri‘s Yuki Tsunoda‘s beached his car into the gravel, causing a red flag, which was not what the home favourite Verstappen wanted to hear.

Felipe Drugovich edged another step closer to the 2022 FIA Formula 2 championship title as he clinched his fourth pole position of the year on Friday afternoon at the Circuit Zandvoort.

The Brazilian will start Sunday’s Feature race from the front of the field, with the MP Motorsport ace dominating the first Formula 2 Qualifying session at Zandvoort in the modern era.

He earned two points for taking pole position, and his position was strengthened still further by the fact that his closest rival for the championship, ART Grand Prix’s Théo Pourchaire, crashed out of Qualifying and will start both races down in sixteenth position.

Pourchaire’s crash into the barriers after losing the rear of the car at turn three caused a fifteen minute interruption to the session, but on resumption, Drugovich claimed top spot with a lap of 1:20.713, more than two-tenths of a second better than anyone else could manage.

Joining Drugovich on the front row on Sunday will be Virtuosi Racing’s Jack Doohan, the Australian the only driver to get within half a second of the pole time, and even he was 0.226 seconds back.