George Russell Tops Practice, Anticipates Tight Dutch GP Battle

George Russell led Friday practice at the Dutch Grand Prix, setting the fastest time ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by just 0.061 seconds. Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton finished third, 0.111 seconds behind Russell while McLaren’s Lando Norris placed fourth. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen the reigning champion was fifth, 0.284 seconds off the pace and expressed concerns about the team’s performance, citing slow times in both short and long runs. Verstappen noted, “We need to work on it. No clear answer yet on how to improve.”

George Russell highlighted the challenging conditions due to strong winds but was pleased with the car’s performance. He anticipated a close competition between Mercedes, McLaren and Verstappen. Despite Verstappen’s dominance in previous Dutch Grands Prix, having won every edition since Zandvoort returned in 2021, he has not claimed victory since the Spanish Grand Prix in June as McLaren and Mercedes have shown significant improvements.

Red Bull introduced upgrades for this weekend and tested different car setups for Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez. Perez, who finished 11th mentioned a mistake in Turn 12 cost him about 0.2 seconds. McLaren also introduced new upgrades, marking their first performance enhancement since the Miami race in May. Norris, currently 78 points behind Verstappen in the championship expressed optimism about the new upgrades.

However, he was uncertain about their immediate impact on performance. He performed well in race simulations, showing promising pace compared to his competitors. The sessions on Friday experienced varied conditions, starting wet before drying and continuing with strong winds. Despite these conditions, only one crash occurred: Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg spun off and hit the barriers, briefly halting the session.

In the first session, Norris outpaced Verstappen with Hamilton third. Carlos Sainz, running on medium tyres was fourth but faced a gearbox issue in the second session limiting his laps.