NORRIS UNSTOPPABLE, DOMINATION ON FRIDAY
At Zandvoort there is a driver who is unstoppable at the moment, his name is Lando Norris. The British dominated both practice sessions on Friday, on both qualy and race pace simulation.
Mclaren’s strength this season has been tire management and high downforce tracks, which has not been a secret for any of us so far. The last couple weekends at both Budapest and Zandvoort, they have proved to have developed a spaceship, going from having both cars in last place in the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, to win everything they can in 2025.
Small rain drops have marked the start of the session, which was immediately led by Fernando Alonso, ahead of Piastri and Sainz. The promising weekend so far for the Aston Martin team got a step back when Lance Stroll crashed at the banking of turn 3, fortunately the driver is ok and fit to race.
Every team was putting on different sets of tires due to the light rain, Verstappen and both Ferraris were on hard tires for example, while most of the grid put on mediums, and the Saubers were on softs.
As soon as the session got back on green flag, Isack Hadjar stopped at turn 8 due to an engine failure, and the French saw his session finish with more than half an hour to the end with no laps set on the classification.
The green flag was waved for the third time and almost the whole grid were suited on new sets of soft tires, to begin with the qualifying pace simulation, given that the track dried out, although the grip was lower than Free Practice 1.
Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso respectively set the fastest lap in high 1:09s, Piastri got third just two miliseconds behind Fernando. The top 3 were the only ones to set times under the 1:10. Russell followed them in fourth, with both Red Bulls and Ferraris behind, as Colapinto closed the top 10 with Hulkenberg.
Alexander Albon also crashed with 20 minutes to go. The Williams driver has touched the grass with the front left tire at the braking zone of turn 1 and went straight up into the gravel, only the front wing was broken.
Ferrari will need to work on their pace as they were almost a second away from Norris time in FP2, and 6 tenths slower than him on average on race pace simulation.
The drivers will get to the track for FP3 on saturday morning 11:30 AM CET Time.
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