Zandvoort makes its final F1 bow this weekend after hosting the sixth race of its comeback stint on the calendar. Max Verstappen has previously taken two wins on home soil, while Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have shared the other two victories to date.
As F1 returns from its summer break, there are limited upgrades on display, with Aston Martin and Alpine attracting the most attention. The former is due to the power unit upgrade being brought by Honda. Although early indications suggested a power boost of between 30-50bhp, expectations have been cooled ahead of the weekend, suggesting the benefit may not be as impactful as had been hoped.
Alpine, however, has brought an eight-part aerodynamic upgrade. Given how powerful this type of upgrade has proven to be across the season, Alpine will hope that this could push the team back ahead of Racing Bulls and into firm points contention.
A wrist injury to Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar has seen a switch of drivers at both the front-running team and Racing Bulls, with Liam Lawson moving up to replace the Frenchman, whilst veteran Yuki Tsunoda has been drafted in to partner Arvid Lindblad.
The weekend is the fifth Sprint event of the season, meaning that Friday will see a single practice session before sprint qualifying in the afternoon. The sprint race will begin the action on Saturday, before normal service resumes with regular qualifying, and then the grand prix on Sunday.
Rain is expected to play a part this weekend, with a chance of wet running on both Friday and Saturday.
FP1 11:30am BST - 12:30pm BST
Sprint Qualifying: 3:30pm BST - 4:14pm BST
10 minutes to go before the green flag falls. Ordinarily, in a damp session, teams would keep their powder dry and leave the backmarkers to create a dry line. But there is no time for that today.
Instead, the track will likely be busy from the word go.
For a full rundown of the upgrades and what they are, click here!
There may have been a shutdown, but there is still a significant number of upgrades on show this weekend.
Just over 15 minutes remain before practice begins. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that we'll see a red flag at some point during the hour.
Back to the weather, though, and the sun is out - boooooooooooo! But temperatures remain low, so there will be moisture on the surface, and intermediate tyres should be called for.
Ahead of the weekend, there was some big news in the driver transfer market, with Albon, Sainz and Verstappen all committing their immediate futures to their current teams, Williams and Red Bull.
Unfortunately, that does somewhat kill the market, with Alonso and Ocon the key dominoes yet to fall.
There remains speculation that Tsolov could find his way into a Racing Bulls seat, meaning a harsh exit for - more than likely - Lawson. But the main energy has been drained from that particular area.
Meanwhile, at McLaren... Let's just say there is more than one way to prepare for a crucial F1 session.
Together again at Red Bull this weekend, Verstappen and Lawson share a joke while watching the Dutchman's overtake of the month-winning effort ahead of FP1.
Mercedes is preparing for the rain. Fingers crossed we FINALLY see the green or even blue-walled tyres. That said, if it's ever wet enough for the full-wet tyre, a red flag is usually shown about five seconds later, so maybe not that much rain...but definitely some.
Onto the format of the weekend then. For sprint weekends, Friday and Saturday look a little different, with today seeing a single hour-long practice session before sprint qualifying gets underway.
That qualifying session is a shortened version of the regular three-phase iteration, and has specific rules on tyre usage. All the details can be found here.
Forget upgrades and the sprint format for a moment; as a Brit, it is my duty to talk about the weather.
We have yet to see any wet running this season, and there is a small chance of thundery showers today. However, there has already been rain falling at the track. With cool temperatures, it is more than likely that we will see the intermediate tyres used for the early laps. Fingers crossed that we get some more rain to really spice things up.
Good morning and welcome to Zandvoort for the sole practice session of the weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix. The weekend is running to a sprint format, and with rain in the air, things could be very, very interesting!