Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel served with summons by the stewards for impeding drivers on a flying lap

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel served with summons by the stewards for impeding drivers on a flying lap

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel

FP1 was an eventful session. Early on, Max Verstappen stopped on track with a presumed transmission issue, which ended his session. George Russell topped the session, followed by his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. There were also two notable impeding incidents.

Lewis Hamilton was judged to have impeded Carlos Sainz on turns 13-14. As such he has been summoned to the stewards at 14:30 local time. His former rival, Sebastian Vettel, was also judged to have impeded Lando Norris and followed Hamilton into the stewards’ office 10 minutes later.

It is possible that either or both drivers may be handed a grid penalty, which will certainly not be good news for them. Lewis Hamilton already retired from the race at the start last time out in Belgium, which brought an end to his run of excellent results, but George Russell, in fact, did show good pace.

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Lewis Hamilton and George Russell seem optimistic for Zandvoort

George Russell(on the left) and Lewis Hamilton(on the right)
George Russell(on the left) and Lewis Hamilton(on the right)

Mercedes have taken a 1-2 in the first practice session. Of course, it’s just a practice session, so it’s interesting to note what George Russell earlier as per GrandPrix247, said that he expected from Zandvoort: “We’ve got reason to believe that it may be slightly better than Spa, but I think Spa was also a circuit that brought out the worst in our car, so to be honest, we’re always going in with an open mind now.”

And he also expects overtaking to be comparatively easier than last year, as he said earlier: “Overtaking should be easier. Felt a bit straightforward on the sim, but that might be different with a full tank of fuel. So we’ll see.”

Lewis Hamilton was also rather optimistic for this weekend, saying: “We hope so. It should be in a slightly better window this weekend, yeah.”

As it showed in Belgium, Mercedes (Russell) were much more competitive with Ferrari. This was also the case in Hungary, even if that was somewhat down to mistakes from the Italian team. If this trend continues, Mercedes have a very real chance of taking at least P2 in the Constructors championship.

Also Read: “I’m sorry to repeat this against a British driver,” Fernando Alonso issues apology to Lewis Hamilton after calling him an ‘idiot’ at Spa

Also Read: Lewis Hamilton suffers a ’45G’ blow in his crash with Fernando Alonso during the Belgian GP