F1 News: Russell nips Piastri in Practice 2 for the 2024 Dutch GP

George Russell in the #63 Mercedes turned a lap of 1m10.702s to nip the #81 McLaren of Oscar Piastri by just 0.061s to top practice 2 for the 2024 Dutch GP F1 race at Zandvoort.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

While Practice 1 started out in heavy rain and then dried out, Practice 2 was run under bright sun throughout alongside the sandy dunes and beach of the historic racing shore town.

Russell ran wide early on after locking up, before topping the session on his soft tire run.

Lewis Hamilton was third in the #44 Mercedes, 0.111s behind Russell, who won the Belgian GP but then had it stripped away because his car was slightly underweight in the post-race inspection.

Lando Norris, who topped Practice 1, was 4th fastest, 0.259s behind Russell

Home favorite, Max Verstappen, rounded out the top-5 in his Red Bull-Honda, 0.284s behind Russell.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was ‘best of the rest’ in sixth, 0.371s away from Verstappen, followed by the RB of Yuki Tsunoda and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, who enjoyed a much more productive session than sidelined team mate Hulkenberg.

Charles Leclerc wound up ninth, as the sole Ferrari driver for most of the session due to Carlos Sainz hitting gearbox trouble, while the latter’s future team mate at Williams, Alex Albon, completed the top-10 positions over the other Aston of Lance Stroll.

The drivers managed to get plenty of laps in under dry conditions, but the same can’t be said for Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr.

The German spun out into the barriers early on causing the first and only red flag of Friday, while Sainz was called to the pits with a gearbox issue – both missing out on very valuable running, with tomorrow set to be wet.

Hulkenberg goes crashing out of FP2 after locking up at Turn 1 💥#F1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/dpCz5cD2n7

— Formula 1 (@F1) August 23, 2024

Sergio Perez also struggled down at Turn 1 early on, with the wind wrecking havoc out there.

The changing winds appeared to play their part in a flurry of early scares, including Russell’s “strange” lock-up and trip through the gravel trap at Turn 8, another for the under-pressure Sergio Perez at Turn 1 and a snap for Max Verstappen through the high-speed Turn 7.

The stewards are investigating two unsafe releases – Guanyu Zhou and Daniel Ricciardo, and Alex Albon and Lance Stroll.

2024 Dutch GP Practice 2 Results