{"id":1869,"date":"2026-08-21T12:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2026-08-21T12:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T12:17:18","slug":"antonelli-leads-the-way-at-zandvoort-as-mercedes-tops-dutch-gp-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/antonelli-leads-the-way-at-zandvoort-as-mercedes-tops-dutch-gp-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonelli Leads the Way at Zandvoort as Mercedes Tops Dutch GP Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli made the perfect start to the Dutch Grand Prix weekend by setting the fastest time in the only free practice session at Zandvoort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mercedes driver, who leads the Formula 1 World Championship by 50 points over Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, edged Lando Norris by just 0.121 seconds in a highly competitive session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Russell completed the top three, finishing only 0.125 seconds behind his Mercedes team-mate. Hamilton was fourth, ahead of Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, with less than three tenths of a second separating the top five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercedes has not introduced a major upgrade package for the Dutch Grand Prix, while McLaren and Ferrari have continued their aggressive development programmes in an attempt to close the gap to the Silver Arrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piastri seventh as Audi impresses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Oscar Piastri was seventh fastest in the second McLaren, but the Australian was 0.659 seconds off Antonelli’s benchmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audi enjoyed a particularly encouraging session, with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto both showing strong pace. Hulkenberg finished eighth, while Bortoleto was ninth, with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine separating the two Audi drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10 for Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home favourite Max Verstappen could only manage 11th place. The Red Bull driver recently signed a new long-term contract extension that will keep him with the team until at least 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson returns to Red Bull as Tsunoda gets Racing Bulls comeback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Liam Lawson finished 14th in his first session since making his unexpected return to Red Bull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson replaced Isack Hadjar, who is unable to compete at Zandvoort after suffering a wrist injury while training during the Formula 1 summer break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadjar’s absence also opened the door for Yuki Tsunoda to make a surprise return to Racing Bulls. The Japanese driver finished 17th fastest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Difficult session for Williams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Williams endured a difficult opening session, with Alex Albon finishing only 19th and Carlos Sainz ending the session at the bottom of the classification in 22nd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both drivers recently committed their futures to the British team, but the result underlined the work still required to bring Williams back into the fight in the midfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The session began with damp conditions and dark skies over Zandvoort. Several drivers initially took to the track on intermediate tyres, but the circuit dried rapidly, forcing the field to switch to slick tyres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonelli ultimately emerged as the fastest driver, with Mercedes immediately showing strong pace despite not bringing a major upgrade to the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attention now turns to the first competitive session of the weekend, with Sprint Qualifying scheduled for 4:30pm local time<\/strong> at Zandvoort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Danilo Russo <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrea Kimi Antonelli made the perfect start to the Dutch Grand Prix weekend by setting the fastest time in the only free practice session at Zandvoort. The Mercedes driver, who leads the Formula 1 World Championship by 50 points over Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, edged Lando Norris by just 0.121 seconds in a highly competitive session. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1911,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/1911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}