F1 Netherlands, the clues from the tests: Ferrari is there
The only free practice session of the Dutch Grand Prix certainly does not offer simple interpretations from a performance point of view, but at the same time it heralds a weekend that looks really interesting on many fronts. Of the four top teams, three seem to have already started off on the right foot, with only Red Bull still showing more than one difficulty even in terms of balance. Among McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari the feedback was instead extremely similar throughout the session, with the alternation dictated more by the rapidly evolving track conditions than by a real dominance of one of the three teams.
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Ferrari really starts well on balance, the uncertainty of the new floor remains
As far as the Maranello team is concerned, the start was definitely promising: the SF-26 showed excellent balance right from the start, with a strong front and a rear able to follow without faltering, not even in traction, despite a non-ideal track grip condition. The low temperatures seem to help the Italian car, which also showed some differences between the two drivers precisely on the tire preparation front: Hamilton seemed to manage to get a better time than Leclerc mainly thanks to better front preparation at the start of the lap and the interpretation of corners 8, 9 and 10, while Leclerc appeared to struggle already at turn 1, with an imperfect front, but then showed a truly perfect rear from turn 12 onwards, throughout the acceleration stretch that goes through the last banked corner to the finish line. Not by chance, in fact, the best absolute time of the third sector was by the Monegasque. Ferrari’s weak point seems for now to be the flying lap and the ability to squeeze the entire performance available from the soft tire, although we are talking about very small gaps from McLaren or Mercedes. On the contrary, the pace simulations of both Hamilton and Leclerc were definitely excellent. The doubt remains about the choice to use the new floor. The new macro-component of the prancing horse, in fact, was not used by either Leclerc or Hamilton to preserve the only available specimens, but with good feedback the doubt whether to mount it blindly (risking ruining the good balance) is legitimate. We will see what the decision will be for qualifying.
McLaren getting better and better, aiming to be a protagonist also this weekend
The Woking team showed further progress of the MCL40 at the start of this Dutch weekend. The aerodynamic load seems less and less a problem and the front seems to continue to improve, guaranteeing excellent performance in fast corners. In the direct comparison between Hamilton and Norris we see that the papaya driver has a slight advantage precisely in the fast sections, but Ferrari clearly prevails in the slow, basically balancing the lap times. It still does not seem a stretch to predict at least Norris fighting for pole and for the positions that count throughout the weekend.
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Antonelli does his part, watch out for the ideal time of Leclerc and Norris
We have not talked so far about Mercedes even though the best time was set by the usual Kimi Antonelli. The Brackley car appeared similar to McLaren and Ferrari, although not easy to manage at best, with Russell more struggling than Antonelli on the flying lap. Overall, the W17 does not seem largely the best, especially considering that in his best lap Antonelli found his best sector times (like Hamilton), while Norris left as much as 0.25s and Leclerc even 0.36s.
Four-way fight for pole
In conclusion, making predictions for the afternoon qualifying currently seems definitely risky, but seeing this first session the hypothesis of a four-way fight for pole, between Antonelli, Norris and the two Ferrari drivers appears plausible. We will see if Verstappen will manage to find a better setup with the Red Bull to invite himself to the fight and how the setups of the others will evolve for the first official session of the weekend.
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