Antonelli Tops Dutch GP Practice as Verstappen Lags in 11th at Zandvoort
Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old who leads the 2026 Formula 1 Drivers' Championship, set the fastest time in first practice for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort — a session that left the home crowd with little to cheer about Max Verstappen, their four-time champion, could only manage 11th.
This is a Sprint weekend, meaning the single practice session on Friday afternoon is the only chance teams get to dial in their cars before qualifying and the Sprint Shootout that sets the grid for Saturday's short race. Every lap of data counts double when there is no second practice to fall back on.
Antonelli's Mercedes team-mate George Russell, a race winner already this season in Australia and Austria, also featured near the front. Mercedes have been the dominant force of 2026: Antonelli alone has won five grands prix — China, Japan, Monaco, Canada and Belgium — and Russell has added two more. The silver cars have set the pace all year, and Zandvoort's opening hour did nothing to suggest that is about to change.
Verstappen's 11th place is the story the grandstands will be talking about. The Dutchman has won his home race three years running, but Red Bull have not looked like Mercedes' closest challengers this season, and a sluggish first practice — even one where teams run different programmes and fuel loads — will not calm nerves in the pit. Liam Lawson, promoted from Red Bull's junior team after Isack Hadjar broke his wrist while boxing, was 14th on his first weekend as a full Red Bull race driver BBC Sport.
Further down the order, there were flashes of interest. Nico Hulkenberg was seventh for Audi — the quickest driver not running on the softest tyre compound, which suggests there may be more pace to unlock. Alpine's Pierre Gasly, Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto and Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10 BBC Sport.
The Dutch Grand Prix also marks the first Sprint event held at Zandvoort, compressing the usual weekend format and giving teams less time to recover from a poor start.
Several teams arrived with upgrades. Ferrari brought a new floor, hoping to capitalise on the raw pace they showed at the previous round in Hungary — potential that was squandered by strategy and operational errors. Lewis Hamilton, who won for Ferrari in Spain earlier this year, will want that floor to work from the off. McLaren and Aston Martin brought smaller aerodynamic updates — new rear bodywork for McLaren, a revised front wing for Aston Martin — while Alpine gave only Gasly the team's first major upgrade package in some time BBC Sport.
Aston Martin's power unit, built by Honda, has improved from its first iteration but still trails the best engines on the grid, as Honda itself has acknowledged. That gap makes every aerodynamic gain harder to translate into lap time.
For fans, the opening picture is familiar: Mercedes fast, Verstappen searching, and everyone else scrapping for the gaps in between. First practice rarely tells the full story. But on a Sprint weekend with only one hour of running before it counts, the story it does tell carries more weight than usual.
