Lando Norris achieved his fourth career pole position by taking the top grid spot ahead of fan favourite Max Verstappen at the Dutch Grand Prix. Oscar Piastri was third fastest in the other McLaren.
George Russell finished in fourth after setting the pace in Friday’s practice. Not so for Lewis Hamilton, who fail to progress from Q2 in a session where all the drivers were struggling to build tyre temperature on the cool track surface that was very green after further rain hit the event earlier on Saturday.
Norris led Q3 throughout – his initial lap of one minute, 10.074 seconds on the first runs putting him ahead of Piastri and Verstappen at this stage.
Verstappen led the pack around for the final go and improved significantly to rise to provisional pole with a time of one minute, 10.029 seconds, gaining particularly from a very strong middle sector, but Norris’s final sector was better.
Norris roared to the top with a lap time of one minute, 09.673 seconds – the only driver to break that barrier – as Verstappen was pushed to 0.356 seconds adrift.
But Piastri could not knock the crowd hero off the front row as he paid the price for not going quicker than before in the middle sector and finished 0.499 seconds down on his teammate despite putting in a personal best time at the end.
Russell did enough to beat Sergio Perez to fourth, with Charles Leclerc the lead Ferrari in sixth.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll ran offset to the rest in the middle of Q3 as they only had one set of new tyres left for the final segment, as did everyone except the McLarens, Verstappen and Russell.
Alonso took seventh and Stroll ninth, with Alex Albon getting in between them and Pierre Gasly behind in P10.
In Q2, Leclerc’s last-gasp improvement knocked out his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz, who had not driven on the softs this weekend pre-qualifying due to his Friday gearbox issue and the rain seen so far at this event. Hamilton missed the cut behind in P12.
Then came Yuki Tsunoda and the Haas duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.
In Q1, Perez’s jump from the drop zone to head the segment using an extra set of softs shuffled Daniel Ricciardo to a early exit for RB.
Perez’s extra lap was required after his first attempt was impeded coming across Hamilton going slowly on the outside of Turn 9 in an incident that will be investigated now the session has concluded.
Esteban Ocon could not find the same improvements due to the track evolution factor and was out in P17 despite setting a personal best time on his last Q1 lap, with the Sauber pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu also out after doing their final efforts ahead of many others.
Logan Sargeant missed qualifying for Williams as his car could not be repaired in time after his massive FP3 crash.
So another Norris versus Verstappen fight for the race win. Can Lando upset the home fans by winning at the Dutch Grand Prix? Bring on the race!
Dutch Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:09.673
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:10.029
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:10.172
4 George Russell Mercedes 1:10.244
5 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:10.416
6 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:10.582
7 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:10.633
8 Alexander Albon Williams 1:10.653
9 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:10.857
10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:11.718
11 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:11.327
12 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:11.375
13 Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:11.603
14 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:11.832
15 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:11.630
16 Daniel Ricciardo RB 1:11.943
17 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:11.995
18 Valtteri Bottas Sauber 1:12.168
19 Zhou Guanyu Sauber 1:13.261
20 Logan Sargeant Williams No time
Lando Norris has secured pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix in triumphant style, with the Briton pumping in a time over three tenths of a second clear of nearest challenger Max Verstappen.
After putting himself on provisional pole during the initial runs in Q3, Norris bettered that effort by setting a sensational lap of 1m 09.673s in the McLaren. This pushed Verstappen – who had briefly taken P1 – down into second place, with the Dutchman’s time 0.356s back.
Oscar Piastri slotted into third place for McLaren, while George Russell was the lead Mercedes in fourth. Sergio Perez also enjoyed a better qualifying than recent weekends, the Mexican putting his Red Bull into fifth.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was sixth fastest, ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso in seventh and an impressive Alex Albon in eighth for Williams. Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top-10 for Aston Martin and Alpine respectively.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-surges-to-stunning-pole-ahead-of-verstappen-and-piastri-during.GBxgPngEFHZeb7FheBo67
Marko reckons team’s post-Friday practice set-up work should make it more competitive after McLaren had looked to have a sizeable race pace advantage at Zandvoort.
Red Bull is pinning its hopes on winning Formula 1’s 2024 Dutch Grand Prix on set-up changes making Max Verstappen’s RB20 “calmer”, after Lando Norris beat him in Zandvoort qualifying.
Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko believes the 0.356s gap between Norris and Verstappen was inflated by a slide for the Dutchman at Turn 11 on his final Q3 lap, which cost him momentum through the next corner. The Austrian insisted changes made by Red Bull after FP2 would pay the team back in the race.
The softs could yet be an important race tyre if track temperatures do not increase for what is predicted to be a dry grand prix.
“After the somewhat bumpy practice sessions, I think we went in the right direction,” Marko told Red Bull’s in-house TV station, ServusTV, in a reference to how Verstappen had been just fifth in FP2.
“And it still looked very good up to Turn 12 [on Verstappen’s final Q3 lap]. He lost one and a half to two tenths there, hence the relatively large gap for this track.
“But the car as a whole is calmer. That also means for the race that tyre wear will probably be better now.
“At least we have split the McLaren cars. We are satisfied, even if not completely.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why-red-bull-is-pinning-its-dutch-gp-victory-hopes-against-norris-on-calmer-car/10647319/
George Russell thinks tyre overheating led to his half-second deficit to Dutch Grand Prix polesitter Lando Norris after being on the pace throughout Q1 and Q2.
Russell and Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton are looking to build on winning three of the last four races, but as the F1 season resumed in Zandvoort the pair qualified only fourth and 12th respectively.
While Hamilton went out in Q2 after struggling with a knife-edge car balance, Russell still felt he had a shot at pole after keeping up with the McLaren and Red Bull cars in Q1 and Q2.
But as the competition turned up the wick, Russell improved by only three tenths in Q3, which saw his gap to polesitter Norris balloon to over half a second.
“In Q2 my lap felt half-decent and I was the same pace as McLaren, so I went into Q3 thinking I had a shot at pole,” Russell said afterwards. “And then the pace just didn’t really come.”
“I don’t think any of it is in the car, to be honest,” the 26-year-old explained. “It’s all down to the tyres. I was on a really strong lap, I was matching Lando, I think I was two and a half tenths up on myself.
“The tyres overheated and I just lost more performance than I expected in the last half of the lap. So I’m not too concerned. I think P4 is a strong place to start and I think we’ll be closer to it.
“You want to start the lap with your tyres as cold as possible, but if you go one degree below the limit, you’ll probably lose half a second. If you’re one degree over the limit, you lose tenths. So, you’re kind of balancing this sweet spot, it’s like you’re edging closer to the edge of a cliff.
“You go one step too far and you’re off. And that’s the challenge for everyone.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/russell-gap-dutch-gp-pole-tyres/10647334/
Charles Leclerc has declared his 0.909s gap to Lando Norris’s Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix pole lap time for McLaren was “too much” for Ferrari.
The Scuderia, which has slipped behind Mercedes and McLaren in the battle to get on terms with Red Bull since Leclerc commandingly won at Monaco in May, has endured a tricky Zandvoort weekend so far.
Carlos Sainz missed much of FP2 due to a gearbox issue, and with the wet FP1 and FP3 sessions, he had to go into qualifying without any preparation on the soft-compound tyres. He was then knocked out of qualifying in 12th, while Leclerc could only manage sixth and had to face up to a big deficit to Norris up front.
When asked by Motorsport.com if this represented the reality for Ferrari right now, Leclerc replied: “Unfortunately, it is. The lap was good and we are nine tenths off, unfortunately, on such a short track. It’s a lot, it’s too much.
“But yeah, as a team, we are aware of that we are lacking performance. We are working flat out.
“Unfortunately, I repeated myself too much in the last few months, but that’s the reality we are in at the moment, and we are doing absolutely everything to close that gap as soon as possible.
“Hopefully the upgrades that we’ll bring in the car, hopefully as soon as possible, will help us to close the gap.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-ferrari-deficit-too-much-poor-zandvoort-qualifying/10647348/
Mercedes Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton has received a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix after impeding Sergio Perez in qualifying.
Red Bull driver Perez came up on Hamilton in Q1 through the slow right-hander of Turn 9, and while Hamilton remained on the outside on the corner, Perez still had to get off the throttle on the exit to avoid the Mercedes.
At the time, Perez yelled “What the **** is this idiot doing?” on his team radio, while Hamilton felt he was “well out of his way”.
The stewards disagreed with Hamilton and handed him a three-place grid penalty, which demotes him from 12th to 15th on Sunday’s grid.
“The driver of car 44 [Hamilton], being on an in-lap, was informed by the team that car 11 was approaching on a fast lap when he entered Turn 8,” the stewards wrote in their verdict.
“He then drove off line at the exit of Turn 8 with the intention to give way for Car 11. However, when Car 11 arrived, Car 44 had already entered Turn 9 and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of Turn 9, thereby clearly impeding Car 11.
“The Stewards determine that, whilst there has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car and therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore a grid drop is applied in line with previous decisions.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-handed-three-place-grid-penalty-for-f1s-dutch-gp/10647435/
Alex Albon has been thrown out of the Dutch Grand Prix qualifying results as the floor on his Williams was found not to be compliant with the FIA’s legality checks.
The Anglo-Thai driver had enjoyed an impressive Saturday afternoon at Zandvoort, and had hurled his newly upgraded Williams into eighth in qualifying to beat Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly in Q3.
In their post-session scrutineering session, the FIA had found the Williams’ floor had lain outside of the maximum bounding box permitted by the regulations and thus reported to the stewards.
“The Stewards heard from the team representatives of Car 23 (Alexander Albon), the FIA Technical Delegate, the FIA Scrutineer conducting the measurement of the car and the FIA Single Seater Director,” read the stewards’ report.
“The floor body of Car 23 was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 a) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.
“The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements have produced different results.
“The Stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed.
“Therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/albon-disqualified-from-dutch-gp-qualifying-over-technical-infringement/10647444/