Dutch GP: the Friday sessions at Zandvoort promote McLaren and Williams, as Ferrari struggles

Formula 1 is finally back on track after the 3-week summer break, and it does so with the Dutch Grand Prix (at Zandvoort). On this Friday we witnessed two free practice sessions with some food for thought regarding the competitiveness level of each team on the grid.

Before analyzing in detail what happened, you can find the final classification of FP1 and FP2 below:

Among the corners of Zandvoort, McLaren regains its competitiveness after the Belgian GP. Verstappen always at the top

Lando Norris and his McLaren's first position in FP2 is yet another demonstration of the progress made by the English team in the last 5 races. After the step backwards taken in the Belgian Grand Prix, mainly due to the low-downforce configuration of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, Norris and Piastri have in their hands an MCL60 that is once again in great shape: especially the Englishman can look at his Friday with confidence, in view of a podium target for Sunday's race. A few more doubts for Piastri, involved in an accident (without consequences for him) to which we return later in this article.

Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

Max Verstappen's second place behind Norris is a bit of a surprise for the World Champion, who so far in Zandvoort had secured pole position and victory in the two previous editions (2021 and 2022), since - on the wave of his sporting success - Formula 1 had come back racing in the Netherlands.

"There was only a speed problem in a few corners, but I'm happy with the balance of the car. Overall, the car has great potential, and we should have a good day tomorrow. We just need to optimize a few things, but the fact remains that I have great confidence. McLaren seemed fast on every compound, and we know that in qualifying and in some situations they are able to fight with us: we'll see tomorrow..."

Max Verstappen

Of course, this doesn't compromise the possibility for the home idol to set pole position and race win once again this year, but honestly I would have expected a greater performance advantage from the Dutchman: the downforce (fundamental here) is certainly not lacking in its RB19, as well as the efficiency guaranteed by the Red Bull DRS system. Work on the simulator in the night between today and tomorrow will be vital to find tenths that can keep him safe from the risk of not achieving a front row start, an important factor on a track where overtaking is historically difficult.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Great performance - and it is certainly not the first time in 2023 - for Alex Albon and his Williams. Third place with less than 3 tenths from the top, and outstanding performances also in the race pace simulation carried out in the final 20 minutes of FP2. Making a broader consideration on the Grove team, it seems that (as for McLaren with the arrival of Andrea Stella) the change of Team Principal at the beginning of the year has brought about a change of mentality that was pretty much needed... This, combined with a revision of the - admittedly antiquated - working methods of the two historic teams is bringing McLaren and Williams back to the positions to which the history of Formula 1 had accustomed us for a long time.

Simultaneous accident for Piastri and Ricciardo in turn 3. The Alpha Tauri driver has to withdraw!

One of the distinctive features of the Zandvoort circuit is the presence of two banked corners, which quickly became a trademark of the Dutch track. However, whereas the last corner is pretty wide, turn 3 is much tighter, with a shape that leaves little room in case of a driving error: correcting understeer is actually impossible except when exiting the corner, although the speeds reached at the apex aren't very high...

Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Ten minutes into FP2 it was precisely Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo's turn to pay the price for two mistakes (one consequential to the other, actually) in turn 3. With Piastri against the wall and the rear of his McLaren still dangerously still on track - which shows how narrow the track is in that place - Ricciardo was unable to do anything to avoid it, preferring to hit the barriers rather than his rival's MCL60.

In hindsight, it wasn't a good choice, given that in the impact against the barriers Daniel's left wrist suffered a blow: a real pity that he was unable to detach his hand from the steering wheel by a fraction of a second, which is a standard operation in case of imminent collision. After a check at the medical centre, the Alpha Tauri driver came out with his arm in a bandage and a worried expression: two hours later the fracture of his wrist was confirmed, for which Daniel will have to give the seat to Liam Lawson (third driver of the Faenza team).

Mercedes in good shape at Zandvoort, as well as in 2022. What about Aston Martin?

Last year Hamilton and Russell had a very competitive weekend in the Netherlands, in which - through a creative strategy - they managed to slightly worry Verstappen for the victory. Until the one-two at Interlagos in Brazil, that had been the best weekend for the W13, aboard which Hamilton had led the Grand Prix for 14 laps.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

A year later, the first feedback from the track speaks of a W14 as strong in qualifying simulation as it is in race pace. Especially Lewis Hamilton seems to have something in hand between the corners of Zandvoort, as he seemed able to demonstrate in FP1, when due to the red flag for the accident of Nico Hulkenberg (also unhurt) he had to abandon his time attack.

"Fantastic day for me; this morning I woke up excited to get back in the car and right from the first lap I felt like I had a good starting point to work from. The first practice session was good, then we made some changes for the FP2 and I'm not sure if we've made any progress or not, so tonight we'll investigate that further. Overall, the car looks more competitive here, so we want to keep up this form and get more for tomorrow"

Lewis Hamilton

The only real weak point for Mercedes seems to be the low top speed, probably the result of an aerodynamic compromise in order to have higher speeds in the middle of the curve, using more loaded wings than the competition...

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The Aston Martin was a little further back in qualifying trim, in any case not far considering how close the entire grid was in FP2 in terms of laptimes... To give an idea, between the laptime of 1'11"330 which placed Norris in the lead and the 1'12"093 which sees Sainz in P16, there are only 763 thousandths of a second: a context in which a potential mistake that costs a couple of tenths means losing many positions!

The strong point of the Silverstone team here in Zandvoort, however, seems to be the race pace. In the laps completed with a high fuel load at the end of FP2, both Alonso and Stroll stood out for the laptimes they were able to set on Hard compound tyres, a compound with very low degradation that could fuel strategic ambitions of a single stop strategy in view of Sunday...

Alternative run plan at Ferrari, struggling with the setup of the SF-23...

Let's close our analysis by talking about what happened at Ferrari, with the Maranello team once again grappling with a weekend that started badly. The SF-23 is showing superior top speeds against the competition (with an excellent third sector split time), but pays for this high speed on the straight with serious grip problems in the second sector.

In addition to this, we must report the run plan carried out by Leclerc and Sainz (as well as by Shwartzman, who replaced the Spaniard in FP1 as per FIA regulations regarding free practices): a few runs with Soft compound tyres, and a run plan that generally focused on back-to-back tests with the Medium compound.

Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

And so Leclerc and Sainz find themselves closing Friday at Zandvoort with a single time attack attempt, in which, however, they failed set better laptimes - respectively - than 1'11"915 and 1'12"093. How to explain the performance below Ferrari's expectations?

The explanation I give to the deficit of Ferrari here in the Netherlands is the following: the low speed of the SF-23 in the tight corners may have its roots in a chronic "weakness" of its front end. Let's try to explain this better...

Since the beginning of the year, we've seen that the Prancing Horse car suffers on circuits with long corners, in which the mechanical grip provided by the tyres cannot take charge of the missing downforce: if it's true that in qualifying this deficit weighs less than in the race, it's equally true that in addition to penalizing performance over one lap, it also limits the setup window.

Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

The best way to make a poor front wing work is to increase its angle of attack, and with it the aerodynamic downforce produced: but this setup choice must necessarily be coupled to a rear wing which is also a high downforce spec; otherwise, the single-seater will have a wrong balance on its two axles.

The problem is that on the SF-23, while increasing the angle of attack at the front end, the front wing still fails to compensate for the increase in downforce at the rear end, so the Ferrari engineers (to preserve the correct aerodynamic balance) are forced to use a medium-low downforce rear wing, as effective on the straight as it's harmful in the long corners that are so frequent at Zandvoort. It's unlikely that the situation will improve on Saturday and Sunday: the Dutch Grand Prix immediately takes on the characteristics of a weekend in which the Italian team will have to do a proper damage limitation, and hope to collect as many points as possible.

Saturday schedule in Zandvoort: watch out for the rain!

Our analysis ends here: the schedule of tomorrow sees the FP3 session at 11.30 and Qualifying at 15.00 CET. Here we'll comment on what will happen, keeping an eye on the weather... the rain forecast can upset the fight on track!

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