Official F1 Journal Friday Formula 1 Round Up- Zandvoort

25/8/2023

After what felt like a very long summer break the Formula 1 paddock arrive at the mighty Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix and home race of reigning World Champion Max Verstappen, and what a track to start the 2nd leg of the season. Its steep embankments and limited overtaking spots make this track one that only the really talented drivers can master and Maximize(please pardon the pun).

Practice 1- Dry

The first headline of P1 was that the Ferrari normally manned by Carlos Sainz would be driven by Ferrari reserve driver and Ferrari Academy driver Robert Swartzman. Both Ferrari drivers were given the choice of which practice sessions they would prefer to sit out and Sainz chose this one ( not surprising after his history here).
When running began it was clear many teams were using this session to get a large amount of testing done. Redbull were painting their cars with flovis paint, the Mclaren ran large Aero rakes normally reserved for pre season testing and both Aston Martin's, Alpha Tauri's and Mclaren's didn't set a lap time until 14 minutes into the session because they were testing new components.

Stroll while on a warm up lap was told to return to the pits with an issue, which turned out to be a terminal power unit problem which prevented him from taking any further part in the session.
17 minutes to go and a Red flag was called for the stranded HAAS of Nico Hulkenburg at turn 13. Running resumed with 10 minutes to go and both Mclaren's set decent times putting them safely inside the top 10. Alonso set a brilliant lap putting him 2nd at the closing of the first practice session. Max Verstappen topped the times by 0.278s, with less than a second covering the top 10.

Practice 1 Result

1 VER 2 ALO
3 HAM 4 PER
5 ALB 6 NOR
7 SAR 8 PIA
9 TSU 10 OCO
11 RUS 12 GAS
13 RIC 14 MAG
15 BOT 16 LEC
17 ZHO 18 HUL
19 SHW 20 STR

Practice 2- Dry

Running began straight away with very few cars choosing to wait in the garage. Piastri was fast but was making small mistakes, his team mate Norris was on great form at the top of the times with Verstappen, Sainz was back in the Ferrari and the Aston Martin mechanics did a great job to get Lance Stroll's car fixed for the 2nd practice session of the day.

But after just 5 minutes of running Piastri lost the rear into turn 3 and hit the wall hard and was quickly followed by a rapid Daniel Ricciardo who saw Piastri's cars in the wall to late and could only aim for the wall to avoid hitting his fellow Aussie at speed. Piastri walked away from the crash uninjured, Ricciardo unfortunately did not and after being checked out at the local hospital, his team Alpha Tauri announced he had broken his hand, meaning he would not be competing further in the Dutch Grand Prix weekend and he would be replaced by Redbull Jr driver Liam Lawson. This injury comes just 2 races after Ricciardo's return to F1 since he split with the Mclaren team at the end of 2022 and then replaced departing Alpha Tauri driver Nyck De Vries for the Hungarian Grand Prix. But with 9 races to go after this weekends race, there is plenty of time for Daniel to make a full recovery and finish his 2023 racing. The session resumed with 37 minutes left on the clock and the times started to tumble, Verstappen Albon, Hamilton and Norris all setting great laps but before the teams settled into their long run high fuel racing runs it was Norris in his Mclaren who had set the fastest time.

The rest of the session was predominantly long runs and race pace tyre testing and the soft was working well and had less degradation on the race simulation runs than expected, the difference between the hard and soft tyre was between 2 & 3 tenth faster on the softer compound. These long soft tyre runs showed the potential advantage the Redbull of Max Verstappen may already have with his laps being 3-4 tenths faster per lap than fastest man Lando Norris. Carlos Sainz & Lance Stroll found themselves coming in too hot to turn 11 and having to bail across the gravel missing turn 12 but both managed to escape any damage to the car and Sainz again found the gravel trap at turn 13 with just 30 seconds of the session left and again escaped with no damage to the car. The sessions ended with Lando Norris & Mclaren top, Verstappen second and Williams Racing Alex Albon having a great session in third.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had a tough session for Ferrari with Leclerc genuinely struggling to get off the bottom of the times till the end of the session after managing 11th and Sainz just didn't seem comfortable in the car. Alonso strangely after a strong P1 finishing 2nd could only manage 10th in P2 and Yuki Tsnondo had another strong session finishing 5th behind the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, with his team mate George Russell only managing 14th despite finishing on the podium here last year.

Practice 2 Result

1 NOR
  2 VER
3 ALB
  4 HAM
5 TSU
   6 GAS
7 PER
    8 STR
9 BOT
10 ALO
11 LEC
12 SAR
13 OCO
   14 RUS
15 ZHO
16 SAI
17 MAG
18 HUL
19 PIA
20 RIC

Joanna Blackmore
Writer @ F1 Journal

0 Comments

FORMULA 1