Today marks the start of a special weekend for Pirelli, as the Netherlands is home to its 500th participation in a Formula 1 Grand Prix, something no other tyre supplier has managed. As part of the celebrations, all the dry weather tyres along with the twenty cars feature a special logo which was unveiled back on 18 February in London, at the celebration event for 75 years of Formula 1.

Both practice sessions on this first day in Zandvoort featured stoppages, as several cars went off track, some crashing into the barriers. Focussing on lap times, Lando Norris was the clear leader, fastest in both sessions, in FP1 with a 1’10”278 and in FP2 with a 1’09”890. In the second hour, both the Englishman and his team-mate Oscar Piastri (1’09’’979), got under the 1’10” barrier, but splitting the two McLarens was the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso who posted a best time of 1’09”977.

THE DAY ON TRACK:
Despite the threat of rain hanging over the second hour, the rain tyres stayed in the team racks for the whole day. No fewer than nine drivers used one of their two sets of Hards available this weekend. Tsunoda in FP1; Leclerc, Hamilton, Verstappen, Russell, Lawson, Hadjar, Albon and Sainz in FP2. Actually, Racing Bull’s French driver did not complete a single lap on his C2s as he had to park the car early on the lap with a technical problem. A similar thing happened to Antonelli in FP1 who went off into the gravel early in the session. In the second session, Mercedes’ Italian driver concentrated on the Soft, running two sets of C4 and so he will be the only driver to have two sets of Hard and two of Medium for the rest of the weekend. The other ten drivers have two sets of Medium and one of Hard, obviously apart from the Softs that will be used in qualifying.

Simone Berra: Chief Engineer:
“Quite an interesting day, with plenty of action as the teams strived to make the most of the time available, compromised by several interruptions across the two hours of free practice. The most significant indication from today is that all three compounds seem capable of playing their part in the race. The Hard proved to be the most durable with the least level of abrasion but, with temperatures like those we saw today this could be slightly penalising in terms of warm-up and performance. The Medium offers the best balance between performance and degradation, but the Soft also seemed competitive over a long run on some cars. The C4 saw drivers make a bigger step in terms of performance compared to the C3 than we had expected, without as mentioned earlier, suffering too much over longer runs.

“The track got significantly quicker during the two sessions as the racing line gradually got cleaner, removing the sand blown in on the wind. Less significant was the improvement from one session to the next, as only one support series was on track in between them. In terms of tyre use, it’s interesting to see how the teams were split almost equally between those choosing to have two Mediums and one Hard per driver for the rest of the weekend and those who favoured the C3 at the expense of the C4. It means the third free practice session should be particularly interesting. In terms of strategy, possibly even more so than previously thought, the choice between one and two stops is wide open, especially now that the Soft is a viable option."