Lando Norris kept McLaren on top in second practice for the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix, but only narrowly from Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin in a session that featured crashes for Lance Stroll and Alex Albon and a high-speed spin for Lewis Hamilton.
Alonso was the only non-McLaren F1 driver to lap below 1m10s in this session, splitting the McLarens of Norris and championship leader Oscar Piastri with a lap that was within a tenth of Norris’s 1m09.890s best and 0.002s quicker than Piastri.
On the evidence of the previous race in Hungary, the Aston Martin is clearly much happier in high-downforce trim when drag/straightline speed is not a big consideration and Alonso made good use of it.
The same could not be said for team-mate Lance Stroll, who crashed heavily at the banked Turn 3 after carrying way too much speed into the corner. His car was craned away with all four wheels hanging off after a heavy impact that thankfully did not appear to injure the driver.
Stroll at least had gone second quickest on medium tyres before that crash, ahead of Alonso, albeit six tenths down on Norris on that same compound.
Stroll’s crash interrupted the start of the qualifying simulations and meant the likes of Ollie Bearman’s Haas and the two Saubers didn’t take the best of the tyre when the track was at its quickest.
Almost as soon as the session resumed, Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bulls stopped at Turn 9 with what appeared to be an engine problem, so more time was lost as a Virtual Safety Car was deployed to allow marshals to crane that car away.
Most of the other leading runners managed to then squeeze in their qualifying simulations before Alex Albon’s Williams locked up at the first corner and nosed into the barrier, before becoming beached in the gravel as he tried to reverse out.
That spoiled the session for both him and his Williams team-mate Carlos Sainz, who was just about to complete his qualifying simulation lap on soft tyres. They ended up down in 16th and 17th.
Albon’s crash also created a bizarre incident in the pitlane as Piastri moved to turn into his McLaren pit only to swerve away at the last second, almost collecting George Russell’s Mercedes in the process. The stewards will investigate the circumstances behind that near miss.
Russell ended the session fourth quickest for Mercedes, just under four tenths off the pace, with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull fifth and Lewis Hamilton sixth for Ferrari, despite a high-speed spin exiting Turn 9 after touching the grass.
Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull, Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, the Alpine of Franco Colapinto - which set its best time later in the session than the rest - and Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber rounded out the top 10.
This didn’t look like an easy session for the Ferraris, which were almost a full second off the pace in FP2, and even though Verstappen enjoyed one of Red Bull’s calmer Fridays, he was still almost six tenths off the pace.
There wasn’t much time for high-fuel race runs, but from what there was time for in the final part of the session, Norris’s advantage seemed only to grow as he set mid-1m14s on the medium tyre where others, including his team-mate, struggled to get below 1m15s.
Practice 2
1) Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m09.890s
2) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +0.087s
3) Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.089s
4) George Russell (Mercedes) +0.384s
5) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.588s
6) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.848s
7) Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) +0.905s
8) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.944s
9) Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.067s
10) Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +1.080s
11) Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1.223s
12) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +1.295s
13) Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +1.430s
14) Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1.449s
15) Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.471s
16) Carlos Sainz (Williams) +1.792s
17) Alex Albon (Williams) +1.866s
18) Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +2.085s
19) Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +2.232s
20) Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) No time
