Alonso started his expected improvements at Zandvoort in a big way: he was 2nd after Max

Aston Martin needs evolutions and they have arrived. The green team, which started the season with the second best car on the grid behind Red Bull, with the massive Fernando Alonso managing to maximize his chances with 6 podiums in the first 8 races, started to fall behind of Canada for the largest number. of the evolutions presented by McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. In the races before the summer break, Aston Martin was the 5th best car and had to counter-attack to get back into contention for the podiums. It was made from this GP in the Netherlands with an important package of evolutions focused on the main part of the current F1 cars, the one that provides the most downforce and determines most of the performance: the ground. Mike Krack warns that these improvements should put Alonso back in the fight for podiums. The team is optimistic, but what was seen in the simulator needs to be confirmed on the track. And so far, in Free Practice 1 where Aston Martin focused on collecting good data from its new floor and diffuser, Fernando Alonso finished 2nd with a good spin as he put on the soft qualifying rubber.

He dominated the average Max Verstappen. The Dutchman, in front of his audience, who began to fill the stands with Zandvoort, won the first free practice of the Dutch GP with an advantage of 0″278 over the Asturian driver, with Lewis Hamilton in third position (0″373). Max set his time on his second attempt, still by a large margin, and suffered only one substitution when marking a small excursion late in the session.

7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was a tenth behind Fernando Alonso’s best time. The man from Oviedo recalled in a press conference that in recent races Mercedes has been faster and Aston Martin needs to improve its consistency and performance with its improvements to fight Lewis for third place in the Drivers’ Championship (Hamilton is only one point behind Alonso). It will be necessary to see if what was seen in Free Practice 1 matches the reality and Fernando can return to the fight for podiums. At the moment, the image is more hopeful than at the beginning of the previous Grand Prix.

Right now, it’s too early to know if the times are representative. One indication that there is more to be seen is the position of the Williamses. Albon was 5th and Sargeant 7th, something that shouldn’t be true unless Williams hit the head at this circuit like they did at Silverstone. ‘Checo’ Pérez was fourth, at 0″471, with Albon at 0″595 in fifth place and the first McLaren, that of Lando Norris, in sixth at 0″608.

The downside for Aston Martin came in Stroll’s garage. The Canadian driver had a problem with the power unit in his AMR23 and only completed two laps. It was important for the two Aston Martins to run in a joint data collection program with different tires at the same time on the track to draw better conclusions about the new ground, but they were unable to do so and the Stroll is expected to take to the track with another engine in the afternoon session (FP2). For his part, Alonso went off the track at the start of the session, which was fortunately scary, as the flat bottom was not damaged.

Sainz did not roll in FP1

It was surprising how the hidden Ferrari started. At a circuit where Leclerc was 2nd in qualifying with Sainz in third place, and where theoretically the red car should have been fine after one lap, the two cars from Maranello did not look at the clock in the first free training. Leclerc finished 16th, with a lot of room for improvement as he was one of the few drivers who did not ride on soft rubber (he worked on hard and then on medium)..

Charles finished 1″667 and Shwartzman, Ferrari’s reserve driver, was 19th, rolling on hard rubber. Carlos Sainz did not participate in Free Practice 1 to allow Shwartzman as part of the Ferrari talent program and the Spaniard had to practice on the track directly in Free Practice 2, continuing his task of collecting data to find the key to a car that is still difficult to predict, especially in the behavior of the front tires change in track conditions.