McLaren’s Lando Norris set the benchmark in both Friday’s practice sessions, but Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso kept the Briton honest with an unexpectedly strong performance on the opening day at the Dutch Grand Prix. F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers drivers’ reactions from the Zandvoort circuit.

McLaren

Oscar Piastri - FP1: 1:10.570, P2; FP2: 1:09.979, P3
"A solid first day back. It was nice to be back in the car, and everything went pretty well. A bit of weather around that spiced things up a little, but I think we made some improvements throughout the day, and we found a bit more pace. I think we’re in a good place going into tomorrow."

Lando Norris - FP1: 1:10.278, P1; FP2: 1:09.890, P1
"It was good to be back in the car. It’s definitely a track where you come in and feel what an F1 car can do straight away. We had some trickier conditions, but it's been a good start to the weekend. The competition is close – closer than we would like, so we’ll see what we can do overnight to try and find some performance."

Aston Martin

"We showed some decent pace today in both sessions. Hopefully we can carry this form on and potentially battle some of the top teams this weekend. The weather looks mixed for the rest of the weekend, so let's see what we can do tomorrow."

"It's great to be back in Zandvoort, it's one of my favourite tracks in F1 and I'm looking forward to this weekend. Both cars looked fairly competitive today, although it's still early to say where we stand compared to the rest.

"Unfortunately, I had a lock-up in Turn Three during Free Practice Two and couldn't finish the session. So there's plenty of work for us to do overnight and we'll see what we can do tomorrow."

Mercedes

"It’s good to be back racing after a few weeks off. It was a positive day for us, and I felt good out there on track. The conditions were tricky for everyone, with a lot of wind strength and gusts, and we saw several drivers caught out by that. Here in Zandvoort, there a lot of corners that are exposed to the wind, and that makes it challenging for us as drivers. That will likely continue over the rest of the weekend.

"We were not quite as close to the front of the field as we would have liked today in terms of our single lap pace. We will look to improve that overnight but encouragingly, our race pace on the long run looked good. If that carries into the weekend, then that bodes well for us. That said, I am sure we will see the field close up tomorrow."

"I was obviously disappointed to start the weekend with my running cut short in FP1. I was pushing hard to generate tyre temperature but locked up and got beached at Turn 9. That ended my session prematurely and was not ideal as it costed me a good amount of track time and learning.

"Thankfully, FP2 was a better session. We focused on single lap work on the Soft tyre and I was able to build my knowledge and confidence. It was a decent hour overall but there were still a few mistakes which I need to iron out.

"We will work hard overnight to make improvements. We know what we need to look at and I know what I need to focus on. We will work diligently and thoroughly, and come back ready for FP3 and Qualifying tomorrow."

Red Bull

“Today wasn't great and we were still struggling with the same things that we have had issues with before. We tried a lot of things with the car but it didn’t seem to change anything with the problems that we had. We will look overnight to see if we can find a bit more, but I am not going to expect a massive turnaround.

"The layout of the track doesn’t suit the problems that we have with the car and it has been quite tricky today, especially in the middle sector there are a lot of long corners. It will be difficult to be fighting at the top but we will see tomorrow."

Yuki Tsunoda - FP1: 1:11.126, P16; FP2: 1:10.795, P7
"I thought that FP1 started pretty well, we dropped off a little to the end but that happens when you're trying to extract maximum performance. It's not ideal, but at least I know the limit. We made a couple of changes into FP2 and it went well. The long runs were far off and it felt stretched, but the shorts runs were good which was actually the opposite of FP1.

"We just need to find a balance in the middle of the two and that's something to work out ahead of tomorrow. It's good to have a smooth session after the summer break and it serves as a confidence builder going into the weekend which is so important."

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc - FP1: 1:11.951, P14; FP2: 1:10.834, P8
"It was a difficult Friday, with FP2 going slightly better than first practice, however, we are far off from where we want to be. We have to do everything to turn the situation around tomorrow. I think it’s going to be tough to battle McLaren and Aston Martin who were very strong today. Our main losses are coming from two corners, so we will work on finding a solution for this."

"It feels good to be back on track. We made encouraging progress between the sessions after not being in the ideal window in FP1. There is still work to do to improve the car balance over a single lap, but the long-run performance looked more consistent.

"As always, qualifying will be decisive here, so the priority is to carry today’s learnings into FP3 and continue to build overnight."

Williams

"It’s easy to get caught around here with the gusts of wind but fortunately, it seems to only be the front wing that was damaged, so the car is looking okay. We hit the ground running in FP1 and we then made some changes going into FP2, but we didn’t get enough laps in to test if they worked or not.

"Looking at tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind rain, but I don’t think we have a bad car either, so we’ll focus on what we can improve overnight and set our sights on Q3 tomorrow."

"It was a bit of a broken FP2 today, as every time I tried to finish a push lap, we had a Yellow or Red Flag on track. The pace was promising, and we made a good step between sessions, so I’m pleased with today. For tomorrow, somewhere in the top ten feels possible, so we’ll need to make sure we stay on it and focused throughout the entire weekend."

Racing Bulls

Isack Hadjar - FP1: 1:11.772, P12; FP2: No time set, P20
“We had some sensor issues with the PU in FP1, so we decided to change both the battery and the PU before heading out again in FP2. I went out a little delayed, but while I was out on track the team were not happy with how the battery was performing, so they asked me to stop the car.

"Hopefully, everything will be resolved by tomorrow. I wish I could have had more running today, but with FP3, I should get enough practice to be ready for qualifying.”

"It's been a tricky day as Zandvoort is a very hard track, which probably showed. That being said, I'm feeling comfortable and the car is in a good place, but we'll of course find out fully tomorrow.

"We tried to make the most of the track time today and will see how the weather turns out tomorrow as it's pretty unpredictable here. As a team we'll keep working overnight to bring everything together because, as always, it's super close, so every small detail counts."

Alpine

Pierre Gasly - FP1: 1:11.613, P10; FP2: 1:12.122, P19
“It is great to be back in the car here in Zandvoort. Today was very much stop-start with some interruptions and red flags out there across both sessions. Still, we were able to have a decent feeling for how the car was behaving. On our Soft tyre run in Free Practice 2, I was happy with what we learnt even if we had traffic and the lap time was ultimately unrepresentative.

"We have a few things to fine tune on balance as usual but we have a good baseline to work with. Some cars are out of our league, we can't be too sure where we stand currently, but our focus is just on getting the car into a good place and extracting the most from it. We will see what that looks like tomorrow when it all counts.”

“It was a decent day, where we've made good steps with the car. It felt good over one lap and, on high fuel, it was fairly consistent. We keep trying new things, which is bringing some improvements, so I think we can be happy with our Practice day here in Zandvoort. We had some compromised laps with traffic and also with some stoppages with red flags across both sessions.

"We will keep building it up and aim to go into Qualifying tomorrow with a decent car balance. We do need to work on finding some consistency on low fuel on the Soft compound and understand how to make the car feel more predictable. The usual work will happen tonight and I think we can have a good day tomorrow in Qualifying.”

Kick Sauber

Nico Hulkenberg - FP1: 1:11.875, P13; FP2: 1:11.080, P10
“It was a fairly typical Friday for us - nothing out of the ordinary. Overall, we’re reasonably satisfied with how things went today. Conditions were a bit tricky at times, especially with the looming threat of rain, so staying clean and in control was important, and we did that throughout both sessions. The field is incredibly tight once again, so every detail counts. Now it’s about fine-tuning and digging into the data to find those last gains before tomorrow.”

Gabriel Bortoleto - FP1: 1:11.509, P9; FP2: 1:11.320, P13
“It’s been a positive, straightforward day. Getting back in the car after the summer break, the feeling was good straight away, and I was happy with the balance throughout my laps. We made some encouraging steps in between the two sessions, and tomorrow is about refining a bit more, getting into the best shape for qualifying, and making sure we do the best job we can.”

Haas

Esteban Ocon – FP1: 1:12.144, P17; FP2: 1:11.361, P15
“Today was a pretty decent day, especially with the step we made in FP2. For me, it was a very disrupted session, and we did our lap on quite used tyres so it wasn’t the perfect session, but I think in terms of car performance, we made a good improvement, and we should be happy with that.

"The rain was supposed to come today which it didn’t, so that was a bit of a surprise, but I think it’s a bit more consistent for the next days, so the focus is on the dry.”

Oliver Bearman - FP1: 1:12.564, P19; FP2: 1:11.113, P11
“This morning was a bit tough for us all coming back after a long break. It’s not the easiest track to come back to, being old school and unforgiving. My goal was just to have a clean session, find out what the car was missing in terms of balance, and we made a change in downforce level for FP2.

"That seemed to look good and in the right direction because the confidence I had in the car was much higher in FP2. We went early onto the softs as we expected a lot of rain, and in the end, it didn’t come, so I set my fastest lap pretty early relative to others, but I think we stand in a good place."