25/08/2023
NEWS STORY
Ahead of today's second practice session the air temperature is 20 degrees C, while the track temperature is 32 degrees. It's bright, warm and somewhat muggy, with a 40% chance of rain.
Max Verstappen set the pace earlier - doesn't he always - edging out Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
While it was bright and the temperatures weren't too bad, a number of drivers found the wind to be a problem, though it wasn't thought to be a contributory factor in the off for Nico Hulkenberg that saw the session red flagged.
Stroll failed to post a time. Late to join the party, the Canadian was on his first flying lap of the day when he was ordered to pit due to a power unit issue, never to be seen again.
There isn't much in terms of upgrades this weekend, Red Bull has a new Beam wing, Mercedes a new Floor edge, Sidepod inlet and Beam wing, while McLaren has a new Rear wing and Beam wing.
At Aston Martin there's a new Floor, Floor fences, Floor edge and Diffuser, while Haas has new Front wing, Nose and Rear corner and AlphaTauri has new Rear wing endplates.
Having handed his car over to reserve driver Robert Schwartzman earlier, Carlos Sainz will be back in the Ferrari this afternoon, though based on the evidence thus far he may want to hand the car back.
The lights go green and Zhou leads the way, followed by Bottas, Albon, Sargeant, Hamilton and Ricciardo.
As more drivers head out it's a mixture of hards and mediums.
This time, all twenty drivers are soon on track and of the first wave Perez, goes quickest (12.644), ahead of Hamilton, Russell, Piastri and Ricciardo.
The session is red-flagged after 9 minutes following an incident which saw Piastri lose his car and go off into the barriers, while Ricciardo crashed at the same spot seconds later.
"Is it possible to bring the car back," Piastri is asked. "No, no, sorry," comes the reply.
"Sorry, I didn't see the McLaren," says Ricciardo.
The session resumes with 37 minutes remaining, the hard and mediums for the most part discarded in favour of softs.
That said, sticking with the mediums - no pun intended - Verstappen goes quickest with a 12.449.
Stroll posts an 11.835 to go top, but is demoted by Gasly and then Hamilton (11.638).
The times continue to tumble for the soft runners, as Norris stops the clock at 11.330.
Verstappen goes second with an 11.568 on the softs. As he heads down the pit straight, Hamilton moves aside to give him room, throwing up a cloud of dust such is the state of the track.
Albon goes third (11.599) as Sainz posts a 12.147 to go eleventh. Leclerc has yet to post a competitive time.
Sainz goes off at Turn 11 after out-braking himself, but is able to continue. Moments later, teammate Leclerc goes eleventh (11.915).
Having established some initial pace, attention now switches to Sunday and longer runs.
Having damaged his new front wing in FP1, and with no replacement available, Hulkenberg is now running the old front wing. The German is currently 18th.
Verstappen is lapping at 15.8, compared to Norris (16.7), Hamilton (16.4) and Perez (17.3).
It's understood that Ricciardo is being taken to hospital for checks after hurting his hand in his crash earlier.
"I had a moment in the last corner," says Sainz following a trip through the gravel at Turn 14.
The session ends. Norris is quickest, ahead of Verstappen, Albon, Hamilton, Tsunoda, Gasly, Perez, Stroll, Bottas and Alonso.
Leclerc is eleventh, ahead of Sargeant, Ocon, Russell, Zhou, Sainz, Magnussen, Hulkenberg, Piastri and Ricciardo.
Check out our Friday gallery from Zandvoort here.