Mercedes stands up to Ferrari; Sainz and Alonso, without options
He ‘Temple of Speed’ prepares this Saturday, to experience an exciting first battle with a twist between mercedes and Ferraritwo old rivals who will face each other in the fight for pole, waiting to know if McLaren can be there after a first day of training in which George Russell was the fastest before Charles Leclerc.
The British driver is Mercedes’ great hope on this track, since the World Championship leader, Kimi Antonelli will start from the back of the grid in Sunday’s race for having changed its combustion engine.
Thus, all responsibility passes to Russell, who fulfilled his mission this Friday by raising the bar in FP2. He was responsible for sending a message of strength to the Ferrariwho had led the first training sessions with Leclerc and a double, with Hamilton behind.
In In Free Practice 2, George Russell beat Charles Leclerc by 0.120, and his teammate Kimi Antonelli by 0.141. While, Lando Norris took a step forward that was still insufficient and approached 0″384, in fourth positionjust ahead of a Lewis Hamilton (5th) who has a lot of margin, since the 7-time champion was 0.457 behind a Leclerc who ended the day with a spin.
Leclerc and Hamilton, before Russell and the slipstream of Kimi
When the real fire begins this Saturday in qualifying (4:00 p.m./DAZN), everything indicates that the fight for pole will be two against one: both Ferrari in view of george.
But that numerical disadvantage of mercedes can be a strength for Russelsince the fact that Kimi Leaving behind whatever you do can give you the option of the Italian giving you slipstreams in Q3 to help you in search of first place. Meanwhile, on the other hand, no one imagines Hamilton or Leclerc wasting a lap to give those tenths to their teammate.
McLaren, the doubt
In this struggle, the big doubt may be Norris. He comes from winning two races in a row after the great aerodynamic improvement of McLaren from Hungary and to aspire to everything they need to fine-tune electrical energy management like Mercedes does with its same engine.
That will be essential on a track with so many straights, with 75% of the pedal to the floor, where the cars end up losing speed at the end of the straights as they run out of energy. That made the best time of Free Practice 2 (1’22″559) more than two and a half seconds slower than the 1’19″878 of FP2 in 2025 on this same track. (article in progress)
Alonso and Sainz, without options
Fernando Alonso finished 19th, 2.468 seconds off the best time with a Aston Martin which suffers greatly from its lack of top speed due to the low engine power Sling. And Carlos Sainz was 17th, 1.341 behind the best with a Williams with which, at most, he can aspire to a Q2 which does not change anything for the Madrid native.
The main problem of Aston Martin It is what was expected: the lack of power of its engine. And that is clear when seeing the differences in maximum top speed recorded in FP2 (consulted on the Formula-Timer portal). The two green cars were the slowest at the point. Stroll reached 314 km/h and Alonso reached 315 km/h, a world away from Leclerc’s 339 km/h and Carlos Sainz’s 334 km/h. with its Mercedes engine in a Williams that is not enough to have that engine.
As expected, the two Spanish drivers will have to suffer, more so in this case Fernando, who already warned that Monza, Las Vegas and Baku (with a lot of straights) would be the worst circuits for his car this year due to this lack of speed on the part of the engine. In other circuits, his good chassis and the weight reduction that will come in Baku will allow the Spaniard to aspire to lead the middle zone or at least be in that Q2 fight. Here, impossible.
Therefore, the priority of Aston Martin and Honda is to resolve during this weekend the drivability problems that appeared in the new Honda engine at its premiere in Zandvoortsomething for which we will still have to wait.
