George Russell said he was looking forward to qualifying with Mercedes to take on McLaren and Red Bull at the Dutch Grand Prix, while opening practice leaders Lando Norris and Max Verstappen were both hoping for a better result after FP2.
Mercedes took first place in the second practice session at Zandvoort with Russell, teammate Lewis Hamilton third, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri following. With the top five, including Norris and Verstappen, within 0.3sec, Russell said Mercedes were running well and he was excited about the prospect of competing for pole position in qualifying.
“Getting back into the groove of things,” Russell said. “It was really hard. It was so windy. It was the windiest I can remember in years. The car was really good. We’ve made some upgrades and it seems to be working as expected. It’s going to be a tough battle with McLaren and Max, but tomorrow could be different.
“The car was slow in the first six races, but the weather was consistent and it was a very easy race weekend for everyone. Suddenly the car was fast in Canada, and then Silverstone, all of a sudden. [of weather] These things are thrown at us, but they are the same for everyone.
“I’m really excited to be back and going into the qualifiers and feeling that battle and excitement that you always get in the qualifiers. I’ve missed that.”
Piastri is 0.061sec behind Russell, while Norris is more than 0.2sec behind and will look to close in on Mercedes as McLaren look to fine-tune their upgraded car at Zandvoort.
“Mercedes is pretty quick. It’s close,” Norris said. “I don’t think there’s a fastest. It just depends on a lot of factors. They’ve been doing well since Miami, but they haven’t updated the car since Miami. This weekend is the first time they’ve tried to improve the car a little bit.
“So I’m optimistic, I have no idea if it’s working or not, what kind of performance we’re showing at the moment, but today was a decent day and we’re there or close to it. Hopefully if we can find a bit more overnight we can challenge Mercedes.”
Norris and McLaren led in opening practice but feel they have “a bit more to find” for qualifying. Simon Galloway/Motorsport Images
Home favourite Verstappen spun in the rain-hit first session before finishing sixth in FP2, and he said Red Bull appeared to be underperforming compared to the top two teams.
“Of course we didn’t run much in FP1, but I think we’ll see a bit more of where we are in FP2,” Verstappen said. “In the short term it was too slow, and in the long term it was too slow! So there’s some work to be done. Right now I don’t have a clear answer on how we can improve it, but we’ll look at it. It’s just too slow. It’s really simple.
“That’s where we’ve been the last few races, so it’s no surprise. We’ll try to do a little bit better on Sunday.”
