{"id":866324,"date":"2026-08-21T15:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866324\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T15:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:22:12","slug":"f1-dutch-gp-antonelli-pips-norris-in-practice-amid-poor-showing-for-red-bull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866324\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Dutch GP: Antonelli pips Norris in practice amid poor showing for Red Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kimi Antonelli<\/a> was fastest in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix as the championship leader picked up where he left off upon Formula 1\u2019s return from its summer break.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes<\/a> star set a 1m12.949s lap at Zandvoort and was the only driver to go sub-1m13s as second-place went to McLaren<\/a>\u2019s reigning world champion Lando Norris<\/a> with a 1m13.070s.<\/p>\n

Drivers were quick to head out for the sole practice session of this sprint weekend – one where Zandvoort bids farewell to F1 – with intermediates the initial choice on a damp seaside track.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But conditions were drying,\u00a0Nico Hulkenberg<\/a> saying \u201cI think it\u2019s slicks\u201d almost instantly, so it didn\u2019t take long to ditch the intermediates with Oscar Piastri<\/a> using mediums five minutes in.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0McLaren driver set the pace on a 1m23.311s, 2.251s quicker than Lewis Hamilton<\/a> who was fastest on intermediates, before reducing that to a 1m20.480s with his next lap.<\/p>\n

That drastic improvement was a sign of things to come on the evolving surface as\u00a0Antonelli surged to the top with a 1m18.264s, 1m16.112s and then a 1m15.531s on his opening three tours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So the lap times kept tumbling, Hamilton, George Russell<\/a> and Charles\u00a0Leclerc<\/a> all greeted the top of the leaderboard, while Antonelli also endured a 360-degree spin at Turn 10 halfway through the one-hour session. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the heck happened there,\u201d reported the Mercedes driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Fernando <\/p>\n

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Everything naturally ramped up when the soft tyre runs commenced with 10 minutes remaining and Piastri was first to beat Leclerc\u2019s medium benchmark (1m14.146s) by setting a 1m13.608s.<\/p>\n

Piastri wasn\u2019t fastest for long though as Leclerc regained top spot by 0.261s, before a 1m13.139s lap for\u00a0Ferrari<\/a> team-mate Hamilton put him 0.208s quicker.<\/p>\n

But there was yet more change in the final five minutes on a busy circuit as Norris went quickest with a 1m13.105s, subsequently beaten by Antonelli who was 0.156s faster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was enough for the championship leader, who holds a 50-point advantage over runner-up Hamilton, to remain top as Norris failed to improve on his final lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was a late change for third though, as Antonelli\u2019s team-mate George Russell – who is 59 points behind the Italian – set a 1m13.074s to go 0.065s quicker than fourth-placed Hamilton.<\/p>\n

Leclerc rounded out the top five with a lap that was 0.289s off the pace and it was a big gap to Piastri in sixth as the Australian\u2019s 1m13.608s put him 0.659s behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n

So the top three teams – Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren – occupied the first six spots as usual, whereas seventh went to\u00a0Audi<\/a>\u2019s Hulkenberg who impressively set a 1m13.784s with the mediums late on.<\/p>\n

\"Yuki <\/p>\n

Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls<\/p>\n

Photo by: Alastair Staley \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Team-mate\u00a0Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> opted for a similar strategy with a 1m13.992s late on and he finished ninth, with Alpine<\/a>\u2019s Pierre Gasly<\/a> splitting the pair after setting a 1m13.911s on hards.<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls<\/a> rookie Arvid Lindblad<\/a> (1m14.285s) completed the top 10 in a poor session for Red Bull, who respectively finished 11th and 14th via Max Verstappen<\/a> and Isack Hadjar<\/a>\u2019s stand-in Liam Lawson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The four-time world champion, who on Thursday announced his contract renewal, reported problems with downshifts and oversteer and had an off heading into the final corner.<\/p>\n

Sprint qualifying is up next on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

F1 Dutch GP – FP1 results<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli was fastest in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix as the championship leader picked up where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,48038,48037,301042,576,82],"class_list":["post-866324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-circuit-zandvoort","tag-dutch-gp","tag-f1-dutch-gp-antonelli-pips-norris-in-practice-amid-poor-showing-for-red-bull","tag-formula-1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}