Friday practice for the 2021 Dutch Grand Prix gave us the first small twist of the weekend: Lewis Hamilton at the start of FP2 was forced to park his Mercedes along the track due to an engine problem, skipping the whole session. One more problem for Mercedes when it comes to a new and never-experienced circuit, and for this reason Max Verstappen could have a slight advantage during the rest of the weekend, but not only him, because Ferrari and Alpine are proving very competitive at the Zandvoort track.
Let’s go in order: the red SF21 cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished in first and second position, which could prove especially important on the Dutch track, a sort of Monte Carlo without walls, because here the qualifying performance could be decisive given the limited overtaking possibilities. Watch out also for the Alpines of Ocon and Alonso, who looked strong in FP2 with a third and sixth place, while the local idol struggled a little on his flying lap. However, when it comes to race pace he was very impressive. A race pace that will not help much if the starting position would be similar to today, and for this reason should expect him to further improve tomorrow.
Analyzing the lap times from the second free practice session at Zandvoort the feeling is that the Ferrari SF21 cars struggle with a full tank of fuel compared to the competition. Max Verstappen is quite different, constant on the low 15 and on one occasion also on the 14.9. Compared to Bottas he was a lot faster, while the question mark about Lewis Hamilton remains. As you can see from the graphic above, Ocon looks really good on the medium tires, and Alonso is not to be discarded, in fact he was faster than Carlos Sainz, albeit slightly, on the soft tyre. Charles Leclerc’s stint was good, but his start of race simulation with the yellow was not exceptional. Tomorrow’s qualifying will be very important, more than usual, from there we will understand something more about this weekend’s progress.
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