Antonelli leads Norris in Dutch GP first practice
Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli heads McLaren's Lando Norris in practice at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes led McLaren's Lando Norris in the first practice session of the Dutch Grand Prix. The championship leader was 0.121 seconds ahead of Norris, who won the last race in Hungary before Formula 1's summer break. Antonelli's Mercedes teammate George Russell was just 0.004 seconds further behind. Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, who is 50 points behind the 19-year-old Antonelli in the championship, finished fourth, 0.190 seconds off the pace.
Hamilton's team-mate Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri of McLaren completed the top six. The new Honda engine showed promising performance in Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso finishing 12th, 1.562 seconds off the pace. This suggests the new engine is providing a 0.3-0.5 seconds gain in lap time, which Aston Martin had been hoping for.
Despite this, the Honda engine is still behind the best engines, as the company itself admits. Nico Hulkenberg of Audi was seventh, the quickest driver not using the soft tyres. Pierre Gasly of Alpine, Gabriel Bortoleto of Audi, and Arvid Lindblad of Red Bull rounded out the top 10. Max Verstappen of Red Bull was 11th, while his team-mate Liam Lawson, promoted from Red Bull after regular driver Isack Hadjar broke his wrist, was 14th.
Both Ferrari and McLaren made chassis upgrades, hoping to improve their performance, while Alpine's Gasly had the team's first major upgrade in a while.
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