Lando Norris pipped his good friend Max Verstappen to finish fastest in Practice 2 at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver finished on top in a flurry of soft tyre runs after a red flag caused by a bizarre incident involving Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo.
Verstappen couldn’t quite get his Red Bull hooked up as he finished second, as Alex Albon sat an impressive third for Williams.
FP2 Review
In the opening minutes, Verstappen, slightly out of sync with the rest on his run plan, had to take avoiding action against Nico Hulkenberg at the penultimate corner amid a sea of traffic.
The Dutchman did manage a quick lap and went fastest as the early running was mostly done on the medium tyres.
At the 15-minute mark, Oscar Piastri slid into the barriers at the steeply-banked Turn 3, followed by Daniel Ricciardo who had to turn into the barriers to avoid T-boning the stricken McLaren.
? RED FLAG ?
Piastri and Ricciardo are stopped by the barriers on the banking! #DutchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/ZO4e6ntCM5
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 25, 2023
Drivers switched onto the soft tyre when the session resumed to complete their low-fuel run with Lando Norris emerging in P1 on a 1m11.330s.
Verstappen followed in second, just 0.023s behind the McLaren with Alex Albon only two-tenths behind in third.
Lewis Hamilton was fourth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly in sixth. Sergio Perez sat in P7 with Lance Stroll in eighth after missing most of the first session with an engine issue.
Valtteri Bottas took ninth and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10 covered by just 0.533s.
Ferrari’s disappointing Friday continued with Charles Leclerc only 11th and Carlos Sainz 16th in his first session of the weekend.
It’s another visit to the gravel again for Carlos Sainz! ?#DutchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/ovbI188NRU
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 25, 2023
Logan Sargeant was 12th, ahead of Esteban Ocon and George Russell 10 places behind teammate Hamilton in 14th.
Zhou Guanyu sat 15th followed by Sainz and the two Haas’ of Kevin Magnussen and Hulkenberg.
The two crashers Piastri and Ricciardo completed the timesheet, with the latter seen in a sling after hurting his hand in the incident.
The full top 10 from Practice 2 can be seen below:
Norris puts the papaya McLaren on top in a tight FP2 in front of the Orange Army!?#F1 #Formula1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/bAaSTNjfUx
— InsideRacing.com (@INSIDERACINGcom) August 25, 2023