(Motorsport-Total.com) – World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli secured the best time in the first free practice for the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort. The Mercedes driver relegated Lando Norris (McLaren) and his teammate George Russell to second and third place by 0.121 and 0.125 seconds respectively in the first and last free session before the sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon.
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Antonelli was always fast whenever he was on the track. Russell only came close with the very last timed lap of the session. How close the top was in general: the top 5 were ultimately separated by only 0.289 seconds.
P4 and P5 were taken by the Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, who are heading to Zandvoort with an update. The underbody of the red cars is new, as is the so-called beam wing. Incidentally, McLaren also brought a few updates to Zandvoort. Mercedes and Red Bull, on the other hand, are running with (largely) unchanged packages.
Although the feared rain did not come at least during the session, the drivers partially approached the limit with small mistakes. Max Verstappen (11th/Red Bull) was once off the ideal line, Hamilton braked too late in the chicane, and Carlos Sainz (22nd/Williams) skidded sideways through the gravel in the penultimate corner, to name just a few examples.
Even Antonelli spun a classic 360-degree turn in turn 10. “I have no idea what happened there,” he radioed to the Mercedes box afterwards. However, he did not let the scare slow him down.
On the topic:
Result: 1st Free Practice Dutch GP
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Top 10: Good start for Audi
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) secured 6th place, with a deficit of 0.659 seconds. Behind him, Nico Hülkenberg (Audi), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi), and Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) rounded out the top 10.
The strong Audi performance also caught the attention of Timo Glock: “Both Audis looked very strong on the medium tires. The onboard cameras looked good with Nico, very, very good balance in the car. So that bodes well for a good qualifying,” analyzed the Sky expert.
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Red Bull teams: New drivers starting in Zandvoort
The session started on a wet track, but without new rain. Nico Hülkenberg (Audi) was the first to go out on intermediates, but it took less than five minutes before Piastri was the first driver to try slicks without tread. Piastri promptly set a superior best time, and so the topic of rain tires was quickly settled (Here is the Formula 1 weather forecast for Zandvoort!).
In the midfield, the two Red Bull teams were particularly under observation at the start. Because Isack Hadjar injured his wrist during the summer break, Liam Lawson takes his place at Red Bull Racing in Zandvoort. And at Racing Bulls, Yuki Tsunoda moves up from the “substitute bench”.
Neither made any major mistakes. Lawson finished 14th, half a second behind the best time of local hero Verstappen in 11th place. And Tsunoda was 17th. The Japanese driver was 0.825 seconds behind the benchmark set by Lindblad.
It is also interesting that the updates at Aston Martin seem to be slowly taking effect. After the aero renewal in Hungary, a new development stage of the Honda engine follows this weekend. With this, Fernando Alonso secured 12th place, one and a half seconds behind Antonelli’s best time.
Zandvoort schedule: What’s next?
Zandvoort is the fifth of six sprint weekends of the 2026 Formula 1 season (Here is the complete Formula 1 calendar!). After the first free practice, the sprint qualifying is scheduled for Friday from 16:30 CEST, in which the starting positions for the F1 sprint on Saturday at 12:00 will be decided.
The regular qualifying for the Grand Prix takes place on Saturday from 16:00, and the race start on Sunday is scheduled for 15:00. The race weekend will be broadcast on Sky (Germany), ServusTV (Austria), and SRF (Switzerland) (Here is the complete TV overview for Formula 1 in Zandvoort!).
Fans can follow the usual Formula 1 live streams on Saturday and Sunday evening on the YouTube channel of Formel1.de. With a summary of the events and analyses well beyond the end of the TV broadcasts. After the summer break, host Kevin Scheuren will present the streams again with the regular team including editor-in-chief Christian Nimmervoll as expert.
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The provisional start time of the live streams is set for 21:00 CEST.