Significant delays were seen as drivers headed out on the track today to kick off the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.
Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes had topped the P1 timesheets first this morning, followed by his championship rival, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
At the 15 minute mark this morning, Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin came to a halt due to an issue with the AMR21’s engine – summoning a red flag for the majority of the first session.
Drivers were able to head back out on the track with just six minutes to go and it wasn’t long before Hamilton topped the timesheets on soft tyres – just 0.097s ahead of Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were in third and fourth for Ferrari in a chaotic end to the session – filled with traffic and near-collisions.
Valtteri Bottas was fifth this morning in the other Mercedes, Followed by Alpine’s Alonso and Ocon in sixth and seventh.
Closing out the top ten in FP1 was Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi, Aston Martin’s Strol and Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri.
FP2
Hamilton’s luck was nowhere to be found as he missed out on most of FP2 with a power issue in his Mercedes.
By Lap 3 this afternoon, he reported the power loss from his engine and was told to switch off the car.
With the pressure now on for his teammate Valtteri Bottas, he completed 33 laps during the session and secured the fourth-fastest time.
The Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were the fastest of the afternoon session – Charles in first with a lap in 1:10.902, and just .154s ahead of teammate Carlos.
In third was the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, then Bottas, followed by the Red Bull of Max Verstappen – whose fastest lap this afternoon was just 1:11.264.
Fernando Alonso finished out day one in Zandvoort just three places behind his teammate and was followed by Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris, Antonio Giovinazzi and Sebastian Vettel in P7 through 10.
Speaking about his bad luck in the Netherlands, Lewis Hamilton said; “It has been a beautiful day in terms of weather and it’s amazing to see the crowd.
“There are so many people here and it’s good to see people hyped. All the energy that the Dutch fans bring.
“This morning I only got about 20 minutes of running with that red flag so it naturally puts us on the back foot but Valtteri looked like he had a good session, so hopefully tomorrow we can try and make up for some of the time.”
