The second practice at Zandvoort started dry, but dark clouds were already moving in and rain was expected. Because of that, the drivers rushed out of the pit lane to get laps in. Some drops of rain did fall in the first minutes, but the track stayed fast enough. Lando Norris, who was quickest in FP1, set the first strong time on medium tyres with a 1:12.615. He was then beaten by Carlos Sainz on hards and Fernando Alonso on mediums. There was some frustration in traffic, with Antonelli and Leclerc both getting held up.

The first big incident came when Lance Stroll crashed at the banked Turn 3. He hit the wall hard and the red flag came out, ending his session. He said on the radio that he was fine, but his Aston Martin was badly damaged. When the session restarted, Isack Hadjar stopped on track with a car problem and a short Virtual Safety Car was needed. Later, rookie Oliver Bearman impressed by going fastest for a while on soft tyres before the top drivers improved again.

Lewis Hamilton had another spin, this time at Turn 9, but he avoided the barriers. Norris then went fastest again on soft tyres with a 1:09.890. Alonso split the two McLarens in second, only just ahead of Oscar Piastri, with less than a tenth of a second between the top three. Soon after, Alex Albon slid into the gravel and hit the barriers at Turn 1, bringing out a second red flag.

There was also a strange moment in the pit lane when Piastri turned into his garage as George Russell was arriving alongside, forcing the Mercedes driver to brake hard. The stewards will look at that after the session.

When the flag fell, Norris stayed on top to make it a clean sweep of Friday. Alonso was second, Piastri third, Russell fourth and Verstappen fifth. Hamilton finished sixth, Tsunoda seventh, Leclerc eighth, Colapinto ninth and Hulkenberg tenth.