ZANDVOORT: Mercedes and McLaren led the way in Dutch Grand Prix practice on Friday as Red Bull’s once-dominant For­mula One championship leader Max Verstappen was only fifth fastest in front of his home crowd.

Mercedes’ George Russell top­ped the timesheets with a best time of 1:10.702 seconds in the second session, run in dry conditions after earlier wind and rain at the seaside Zandvoort circuit.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was fastest in the opening session in 1:12.322.

His Australian team-mate Oscar Piastri was second in the late afternoon, 0.061 slower than Russell, with Mercedes’ seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton third and Norris fourth.

“Its been a good Friday. The pace looks pretty solid over one lap and the long run pace looks decent so far,” said Piastri.

Triple world champion Verst­appen has won every race at Zandvoort from pole position since the track returned to the calendar in 2021 but is on a four-race losing streak and expected to have a tougher time on Sunday.

His time was 0.284 slower than Russell’s best, with Mexican team-mate Sergio Perez down in 12th, but only 0.025 off Norris’s time.

“We didn’t quite have the pace on the long and short runs and at the moment there isn’t a clear answer on how to improve this, but we will look into things,” said Verstappen. “This is where we have been the last few races, so it isn’t a surprise but we need to work to find a little bit more form ahead of qualifying tomorrow.”

Perez’s continuation with the team has been the subject of much speculation, despite a contract extension, but Red Bull boss Chri­stian Horner defended the decision to keep faith in the Mexican.

“For us, we’ve got the two drivers that we believe in our pool of drivers are the most capable of giving us the best results. If there was a doubt in that then we would have changed it,” he said. “Perez is a driver capable of bouncing back and we are giving him our full support. We want to see him respond.”

McLaren are starting the second half of the season with an upgraded car but resurgent Merc­edes have won three of the last four races and are looking strong.

Verstappen leads Norris by 78 points in the standings after 14 of 24 races, with Sunday’s race his 200th start in Formula One.

The conditions in the first session meant only three drivers had posted timed laps by the halfway mark but the track got busier as the weather improved.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished ninth in session two, with team-mate Carlos Sainz 19th after being sidelined by a gearbox problem after only seven laps.

“I will do everything to extract the maximum in qualifying, but the gaps we are looking at for the moment are too big to do anything special,” said Leclerc.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024