Lando Norris edged out Max Verstappen to set the pace during Friday’s second practice session for the Dutch Grand Prix, which was red-flagged in the early stages following an unusual double crash involving team mate Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo.

Just under 10 minutes into the one-hour outing around the twisty Zandvoort circuit, Piastri dramatically lost control of his McLaren exiting Turn 2 and slid into the barriers on the outside of the banked Turn 3, causing significant front-end damage.

FP1: Verstappen leads Alonso and Hamilton in opening practice session in Zandvoort

Moments after Piastri’s shunt, returning AlphaTauri driver Ricciardo approached the section at full speed and, with his fellow Australian sitting in the middle of the racing line, there was nothing he could do to avoid hitting the wall himself.

After the mess was cleared up, drivers made the switch to the soft compound tyre and times began to tumble, with the impressive Norris stepping forward to set the benchmark on a 1m 11.330s – a lap strong enough to keep P1 despite two efforts from home favourite Verstappen.

Verstappen wound up 0.023s adrift, having survived a snap exiting Turn 3 on his first soft-shod effort and then complained over the radio that his RB19 was doing “some weird things” in the medium-speed corners.