What we learned from Friday practice at the 2024 F1 Dutch GP

Good. Right now, it really seems the multi-team scrap for victories that Formula 1 was enjoying before the 2024 summer break has been preserved. That’s even with a series of new parts arriving on cars across the grid.

Mercedes led the way on the opening day of practice for the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix thanks to George Russell’s headline effort, with McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing FP2 either side of Lewis Hamilton behind Russell. Home hero Max Verstappen was down in fifth, while (less surprisingly) Sergio Perez didn’t even make the top 10.

There is a mitigating circumstance for Red Bull in one key area, as we’ll go on to cover, while in another McLaren looks to have a significant advantage over the rest at this stage. Ferrari struggled on Friday amid reliability issues and unfortunate timing on qualifying simulations for Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc respectively.

But overall things really do look to be very close again between F1’s leading teams. This and much more is what we learned from the first two track sessions on the edge of the North Sea at Zandvoort on Friday.

The story of the day

The pre-FP1 car presentations had revealed the first of an eagerly awaited set of developments from McLaren, which was set to update the MCL38 in the post-summer break run after its last big package had come in Miami.

On this high-downforce track, the orange machine now features a new floor edge, its suspension sheaths are realigned on both axles, its brake ducts have been reshaped, and it now sports a new beam and rear wing.

These were only run on Norris’s car during FP1, as McLaren concentrated on back-to-back data-gathering with its previous arrangement via Piastri’s car. The two MCL38s were both in updated form in FP2.

Norris led FP1, which began in dramatic storm conditions, as rain and wind gusts of up to 50mph battered the track. F1 cars are generally unruffled with wind speeds at half this level, but only really in consistent wind. Nico Hulkenberg tripped his Haas through several gravel traps as one of the few drivers that did venture out in the gales, where the full wet tyres were used early on.

As the track began to dry the times tumbled, with the course drying up enough for a flurry of laps on the softs to come in right at the end of FP1.

Norris’s average on the medium compound likely…