George Russell was fastest in the first practice for the Formula 1 Dutch GP followed by Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes 1-2. Sergio Pérez was seventh and Max Verstappen missed much of the session.
This compound was the predominant one in all the cars at the start, except for Fernando Alonso's, who was placed in front when turning in 1m17s360 and then in 1m15s662 before being relegated by Lando Norris, with 1m15s646.
Max Verstappen would take the first position with a lap of 1m15s266, which would be improved by three thousandths by Daniel Ricciardo, but the local driver responded with 1m14s714 to return to the top, while Sergio Pérez was sixth, 1s028 behind his teammate in Red Bull.
Ten minutes into practice, however, it would change the tide for Verstappen as he was stopped before Turn 3 reporting a gearbox problem on his RB18, prompting first a Virtual Safety Car and then a red flag.
The green flag returned nine minutes later, when the soft tires began to be seen on the track and Alonso was the first to take advantage of them to lap in 1m13.635s and place his Alpine in first place.
Norris lowered that to 1m12.929s, but would be relegated by Carlos Sainz with a time of 1m12.845s, while Pérez was fifth with 1m13.641s with the only Red Bull on track.
With just over 20 minutes to go Charles Leclerc rode the softs for the first time after focusing on the hards and set a time of 1m13s127s to jump to fourth place, one position ahead of Pérez, who improved his mark to 1m13s416s in his third start on the softs after ruining the second with a slight run off the track at turn 8.
Mercedes went even further in time on the hard tires before fitting Pirelli's fastest compound, with George Russell the first to do so with 17 minutes to go, placing third in the leaderboard with a lap of 1m13.035s before spinning in 1m12.455s. on his next outing to take first place.
Lewis Hamilton had his first attempt already ten minutes from the checkered flag and on his first fastest lap he went from 19th to second, coming within 0.240s of his Mercedes teammate.
The final minutes of the session saw no improvement in times as the focus shifted to higher fuel runs, so Russell stayed in front followed by Hamilton in a 1-2 Mercedes, with Sainz third.
Norris finished fourth, followed by Ricciardo, Leclerc and “Checo” Pérez, while Alonso, Esteban Ocon and Alexander Albon completed the top ten positions.
Verstappen, having missed 50 minutes of practice, finished 19th in the times, just ahead of Nicholas Latifi's Williams.
