Antonelli tops Dutch GP practice in sprint return

Kimi Antonelli tops Dutch GP practice and he did it the hard way. The 19-year-old Mercedes driver registered a 1m12.949s on his final push lap after earlier being baulked by Hulkenberg on a slow lap, which did not impress the championship leader one bit. It was a composed response to a messy session, and it is exactly the kind of composure that has him 50 points clear of the rest.

Antonelli tops Dutch GP practice with a flawless final lap

Antonelli topped the only practice session for the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix, with Lando Norris a close second and George Russell third in the second Mercedes. Norris had put in a 1m13.105s, meaning the gap between the two was just 0.156 seconds. Tight, but telling. Mercedes had the edge when it counted.

The top 10 in the sole practice session were Antonelli, Norris, Russell, Hamilton, Leclerc, Piastri, Hulkenberg, Gasly, Bortoleto and Lindblad. That last name catches the eye. At the foot of the table, Carlos Sainz was the slowest driver of all, falling behind the Cadillac pair. Williams will have questions to answer before qualifying on Saturday.

Antonelli did spin in Turn 10 earlier in the session, a perfect 360, and was lucky not to have been collected by a Racing Bulls car just behind him. He radioed that he had no idea what caused it. Given that it had zero effect on his eventual lap time, it is easy to file that away, but setup trims on a sprint weekend carry real consequences.

Why the Dutch GP sprint format changes everything

Formula 1 returned from its summer break at Zandvoort with the only practice session of the 2026 Dutch GP weekend carrying far more importance than usual. FP1 began at 12:30 local time on Friday, August 21, and because the Dutch GP is being run as a Sprint event for the first time, teams had just one hour of practice before Sprint Qualifying at 16:30.

One hour. That is not enough time to chase setup rabbit holes, and every team knows it. The engineers who get their baseline right from lap one win this format. The ones who spend 25 minutes chasing a handling quirk before their driver even puts on a soft tyre lose it before Sprint Qualifying even starts.

This is also the last Dutch Grand Prix, as the event has not been renewed beyond this year, so the Orange Army will be out in force to support Max Verstappen racing on home soil for potentially the final time in his career. The 2026 Dutch GP is the final Formula 1 race at the circuit under the current agreement, bringing the curtain down on an event that returned to the calendar in 2021 and quickly became synonymous with huge crowds. The sprint format is both a celebration and a ruthless compression of a farewell weekend. Check our Dutch Grand Prix 2026 guide for the full story on Zandvoort’s final chapter.

Mercedes versus McLaren: the gap that matters

Norris took his first victory of the campaign in Hungary before the shutdown, while Antonelli still leads the championship as Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren continue to trade momentum. FP1 at Zandvoort does not change the championship picture, but it establishes intent. Mercedes looked composed. McLaren looked fast. The 0.156-second margin between P1 and P2 is the entire argument in miniature.

Mercedes arrived in Zandvoort under greater pressure than during the opening months of the championship. FP1 offered the first indication of whether the team responded during the break, with Mercedes already indicating before Hungary that a more substantial development step was being prepared for the first race after the shutdown. Antonelli topping the session suggests whatever arrived is working, at least in this first hour.

Verstappen, Audi, and the stories beneath the top ten

Verstappen went only fifth fastest and appeared to be carrying a significant amount of understeer. He radioed that his car suddenly had a lot of oversteer just after a snap at Turn 13 and had to drive through the gravel, bringing his RB22 back to the pits for the mechanics to check. A complicated afternoon for the home hero. Read more about his position heading into this weekend in our piece on Verstappen’s Red Bull second-half revival.

Bortoleto underlined Audi pace with a lap good enough for sixth, also on the mediums, while Norris battled through significant traffic yet still set his 1m13.105s. Audi going sixth on mediums while others were on softs is the quiet statistic of the session. Nobody in the paddock will be ignoring that.

The other major storyline running underneath the lap times is Aston Martin and Honda. Aston Martin introduced an effective B-spec chassis in Hungary before the summer break, with a 16-part update coming to the AMR26, which is now complemented with updated Honda power at Zandvoort. Honda’s chief engineer Orihara confirmed that raw horsepower was Honda’s main weakness, and that engineers prioritised ICE performance and combustion characteristics over driveability tweaks.

One practice session is a brutal evaluation window. Orihara himself pointed out that Zandvoort is a sprint weekend with only a single free practice session, calling it “an additional challenge to complete the evaluation of our new package.” For more on what this upgrade means, see our Honda power unit upgrade analysis.

Meanwhile, Liam Lawson stepped in for the absent Isack Hadjar at Red Bull, and Lawson carried too much speed through Turn 11 and had a slide, managing only 14th, half a second down on Verstappen’s best effort. A tough introduction under sprint pressure.

Sprint Qualifying follows within hours. Antonelli has the momentum. Norris has the hunger of a defending champion who took his first win of 2026 in Budapest. Follow the full session schedule and timings on our 2026 Dutch GP schedule page.