McLaren headed its Formula 1 rivals by a truly imposing margin in final Dutch Grand Prix practice at Zandvoort, as Lando Norris outpaced title rival Oscar Piastri again.
Though the session began with a wet track declared, it was in reality only marginally damp, with representative slick-tyre running possible right away.
And unlike both Friday sessions, which were interrupted by many incidents, this was a remarkably tidy 60 minutes, which aided McLaren in fully flexing its current F1 dominance.
Norris and Piastri were already ahead after their initial runs on softs, the latter 0.142s ahead of the former but having set his best laptime meaningfully later so benefitting from some track evolution, but while McLaren's rivals were adrift many of them had run harder tyres.
However, McLaren's advantage only ballooned once the whole field switched to new softs.
Norris hammered in a 1m08.972s, assembling three session-best sectors in the process, with Piastri a quarter of a second back and the rest of the field at best around nine tenths off.
Piastri did then give it another go on the same set, and took the session-best sector three off Norris, but was too far back over the rest of the lap to even post a personal best overall.
There was no competition for them. George Russell was 0.886s as comfortably the leading Mercedes - over eight tenths up on team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who seemingly remains on the back foot after his early off in first practice.
Whoa, that was so close! 😨
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 30, 2025
Alonso and Russell almost come together 🎥#F1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/krqHfE2yn8
Russell's session was most notable for a run-in with Fernando Alonso, who was caught out on a push lap coming out of the final corner as Russell committed to the pitlane entry - the resulting near-miss forcing Russell to stay out against his wish and Alonso to come in, seemingly also against his wish.
The incident was placed under investigation by the stewards, who returned a verdict of a warning to Russell and a €7,500 fine for Mercedes for not giving him a heads up that Alonso was approaching.
Carlos Sainz was a surprise fourth-fastest in the Williams, 0.012s quicker than Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and 0.025s quicker than Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).
The other Ferrari driver, Lewis Hamilton, ran a different rear wing level during the sessiom. He had led Leclerc in both Friday sessions - and the pattern looked to be continuing here, except on the final run Hamilton was too wide through the banked Hugenholtz corner, so had to go again, and couldn't quite string a strong lap together.
Every driver improved in their late-session pushes on soft-tyres, but one was notable in how little he improved - with Ollie Bearman only 15th for Haas after having been sixth-fastest after his initial run on hard tyres.
Results
1) Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m09.214s
2) Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.242s
3) George Russell (Mercedes) +0.886s
4) Carlos Sainz (Williams) +0.941s
5) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.953s
6) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.966s
7) Alex Albon (Williams) +1.127s
8) Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +1.131s
9) Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) +1.194s
10) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.260s
11) Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1.328s
12) Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) +1.377s
13) Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +1.389s
14) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +1.401s
15) Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1.623s
16) Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +1.627s
17) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +1.725s
18) Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.829s
19) Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.991s
20) Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +2.082s
