Neither rain nor high winds could keep Max Verstappen’s horde of home fans away from Zandvoort on Friday.
The first session back from the mid-season break was wet and wild. Rain was heavy enough that there was little running before the sun eventually broke through the clouds in FP1, and gusts were so strong that Nico Hülkenberg’s Haas car was blown clean off the track at the beginning of FP2, smashing into the barriers and causing a red flag.
But through the difficult conditions emerged the hoped-for picture of a highly competitive field, with Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull Racing practically even in the fight for victory at the Dutch Grand Prix.
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MERCEDES LEADS THE WAY IN UPGRADE GAME AGAINST MCLAREN
The frontrunners looked as close as ever at Zandvoort, with just 0.284 seconds separating the top three teams by the end of Friday.
George Russell led the way for Mercedes just 0.061 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.
With the exception of Sergio Pérez — who was 12th and 0.879 seconds adrift after a troubled run — Verstappen was the slowest of the frontrunning three, ending the day fifth and 0.284 seconds off the pace.
The high lap counts during FP2, with most teams splitting programs between drivers to accumulate maximum data, gave us a comprehensive performance picture heading into Saturday, albeit the gaps are so close that they’re liable to change.
Race simulation pace
McLaren: fastest
Mercedes: +0.01 seconds
Red Bull Racing: +0.04 seconds
Ferrari: +0.35 seconds
Williams: +0.92 seconds
Haas: +0.93 seconds
Alpine: +0.93 seconds
RB: +0.96 seconds
Aston Martin: +1.05 seconds
Sauber: +1.45 seconds
There’s almost nothing splitting McLaren and Mercedes, which is a fascinating development on a day both teams brought major upgrades to their cars.
McLaren has brought its most significant update since the Miami Grand Prix package that completely revolutionised its season, delivering victory to Lando Norris and turning the team into a genuine Red Bull Racing challenger, putting it on the path to its title-contending status.
Mercedes, meanwhile, has brought back the floor it ditched on Friday in Belgium. It took the floor off at Spa after a difficult practice day but discovered on Saturday that its struggles were actually due to set-up, not the upgrade, albeit too late to reinstall to the new part.
“It was pretty good,” Piastri reflected. “It doesn’t feel massively different and it should be a bit faster hopefully.
“It all went smoothly, all went to plan, and hopefully just makes us a little bit faster from now.
“Mercedes looked quick again, so I’m expecting it to be a pretty hard-fought weekend once again.”
Russell said Mercedes too had enjoyed expected results but warned “it could all be different again tomorrow” given how close things look.
Verstappen will certainly be hoping for big changes in time for Saturday.
While the RB20 certainly wasn’t miles off, neither he nor Pérez looked as comfortable as the McLaren and Mercedes drivers.
“A bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run, so a bit of work to do,” Verstappen summed up.
“At the moment, there’s no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. Just a bit too slow, as simple as that.”
Pérez said he had been “testing quite a bit of stuff” as a partial explanation for his off-the pace performance but expressed confidence he would be back in the fight on Saturday.
Red Bull Racing is using the Hungary-spec high-downforce upgrade package this weekend for Zandvoort’s unrelenting bends. It’s the same update Verstappen lambasted as being not good enough in Budapest, where he declared that “not everyone is on the same wavelength” at the team.
It’ll be fascinating to see whether the team can change his opinion with the same parts this time around.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Jack Doohan is set to step up to Formula 1 with Alpine in 2025. After speaking with Australia’s newest grand prix driver, Michael and Mat dissect how the Queenslander is processing the news, the challenges he’ll face with Alpine and the odds of getting three Aussies onto the grid next season.
HORNER DEFENDS PÉREZ HANDLING IN COMBATIVE INTERVIEW
Red Bull Racing’s highest profile contribution to Friday came off the track in Christian Horner’s interview with Sky Sports at the conclusion of FP2.
The team is under several different but connected spotlights in the second half of the season: its championship defence, its car development program and its handling of Pérez’s struggles for form.
Red Bull Racing is shipping just under 13 points per weekend to McLaren based on the last four weekends. At that rate it will lose the title lead by the end of September. It’s also been outscored by Mercedes in that time.
“[We’ve been outscored] because we haven’t had both cars up there,” Horner said, defending the RB20’s performance against criticism that poor development had allowed the team to be caught but emphasising that it’s Pérez’s poor points return since the start of May that’s been responsible for the overwhelming majority of points lost to rival teams.
Red Bull Racing had been tipped to dump Pérez in favour of Daniel Ricciardo during the break but unexpectedly granted him a reprieve.
Horner responded defensively when asked why the team had changed heart, awkwardly throwing the question back to host Natalie Pinkham.
“Well, who would you put in? Who would you change him for? Why would you change?” he said.
“I’m not the boss of Red Bull. Why have you turned it back on me?” Pinkham replied.
Horner argued that Pérez remained the team’s best partner to Verstappen.
“We’ve got the two drivers that we believe — in our pool of drivers — are the most capable of giving us the best results,” he said.
“If there was a doubt in that, then we would have changed it.
“We have all the data from all of the drivers. We have that information.
“We know what Checo is capable of. At the beginning of the year he had four podiums in five races.
“I think he’s just had a lack of confidence and has ended up in a bit of a spiral. I think he’s had a bit of reset — hopefully — over the summer break.
“You are very quick to condemn Sergio. We are trying our hardest to give him the chance to rediscover that form. He has to cope with all the pressure, the media, all the social media that piles in on the back of that.
“He’s a driver that’s capable of bouncing back. We’re giving him our full support and want to see him respond.”
Red Bull Racing is rumoured to have an internal reassessment date at the end of September. Horner appeared to single out the next four rounds as important.
Just how far that “full support” extends remains to be seen.
Another Aussie to join F1 Grid | 00:31
HORNER DEALS BLOW TO LAWSON’S RED BULL HOPES
Horner was subsequently asked about Liam Lawson’s role in closing Red Bull’s four-car driver line-up for 2025.
The New Zealander hit headlines earlier this week after Red Bull motorsport adviser told Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung that “next year [Lawson] will definitely be driving one of our cars”.
The comments, which appeared to amount to a driver signing announcement, appeared to turn the screws on both Ricciardo, who remains uncontracted at RB, and Pérez, who is under pressure to lift his game.
But Horner denied to Sky Sports that Marko had said Lawson would be promoted to one of Red Bull’s two teams, insisting instead that he had only declared the Kiwi would be racing for one of the 10 Formula 1 teams next season.
“I asked him quite clearly,” Horner protested. “He said he’ll have ‘a drive’ in Formula 1 next year.
“We could rent him out. Nothing is fixed. If we don’t take up the option on Liam, then he’s a free driver for 2025. We’ve got specific time periods within drivers contracts where that becomes prevalent.
“I checked with Helmut, his comment earlier, and he said, ‘No, I didn’t say which car’. It was ‘a drive’.”
Austrian Marko regularly appears for interviews in the German-language Kleine Zeitung, where he is specifically reported as saying “in one of our cars”.
Evidently Horner has an issue either with the paper’s reporting or with what appears to be Marko undercutting team decisions.
It’s a public flashpoint between the two managers, who were supposed to have called a truce on their power struggle for greater control over Red Bull’s Formula 1 program.
This would appear to be an extension of that struggle. Marko’s power base has long been wielded through control over Red Bull’s junior driver program and, by extension, the RB team. He’s been publicly insisting that RB must return to its roots as a driver nursery for months.
Horner, meanwhile, exerts power as principal of the senior team, which Red Bull’s entire investment is geared to serve.
Perhaps it was the implication that Lawson could be promoted directly to Red Bull Racing — “one of our cars” rather than an RB car — that moved Horner to disavow Marko’s comments on Marko’s behalf.
Whatever the case, there’s clearly some way still to go on Red Bull’s driver conundrum.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Formula 1 is back from the break with the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend, and Michael and Mat preview the biggest storylines still to be resolved over the rest of the season.
HAAS AT RISK OF IMPOUND IN RUSSIAN DEBT CASE
In a day of unusual stories, none was more bizarre than Haas’s run-in with Dutch authorities in the lead-up to track action.
On Thursday evening the American-owned team was visited by Dutch bailiffs and police officers to undertake an asset count based on a court order from earlier this month.
The order was triggered by legal action brought by former title sponsor Uralkali, the Russian fertiliser company whose money funded Nikita Mazepin’s brief and scoreless stint as a Formula 1 driver in 2021.
Haas terminated its title sponsorship deal with Uralkali during the 2022 pre-season following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Mazepin was sent packing with it.
Uralkali is controlled by Nikita’s father, Dmitry, who was slapped with sanctions after being deemed “a member of the closest circle” of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The company subsequently launched legal action in Switzerland against Haas for breach of contract, claiming it was owed money it had paid in advance of the season as well as a car from the 2021 campaign.
The court ruled that Haas was entitled to break the contract but must refund some of the sponsorship money and make good on its delivery of a 2021 car.
Uralkali claimed last month that Haas had missed the deadline to pay up, and it’s since escalated the feud by successfully petitioning the Dutch courts to prevent Haas from leaving the Netherlands without making good on its refund.
In a statement on Friday Haas said it “fully intends to pay to Uralkali all amounts due” but that it has been delayed in fulfilling the court order because it needs to ensure payment wouldn’t breach any sanctions or related regulations.
Uralkali didn’t buy it.
“There are not now and never have been any sanctions issues preventing Haas from fulfilling its obligations,” it replied overnight. “Nevertheless, they have gone unfulfilled.
We are delighted to hear that, following last night’s visit from Dutch authorities, Haas is finally paying attention to the arbitral ruling.”
Haas reportedly had not completed the payment process on Friday night.
If it can’t be completed before Monday, the team’s departure from Zandvoort could be delayed. The Italian Grand Prix — roughly 1000 kilometres away in Monza by road — is next weekend.
Any holdup could put complicate Haas’s weekend or, in the worst case, put its participation in jeopardy.
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