Lando Norris edged out the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli to take pole position for the final Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
The McLaren driver beat sprint winner Russell by 0.102 seconds to seal a perfect qualifying for McLaren, as the defending champions had topped every session.
It came after Norris, who also topped Q2, had already claimed provisional pole with a lap time of one minute, 11.344 seconds and that was 0.151 seconds faster than Russell with Oscar Piastri two tenths off in third.
Until then, the qualifying session had been held in dry conditions but rain was about to fall down on the seaside track, causing a series of cars to leave the pitlane as quickly as possible for their second laps in Q3.
This did cause some trouble though, as Norris and Russell entered the track at the same time and were seen racing each other on their outlaps with five minutes remaining.
Both finally got rid of each other and Norris was first to cross the finishing line, improving to a time of one minute, 11.163 seconds on his final lap and although Russell also improved his own time, it was only one minute, 11.265 seconds.
They displaced Antonelli who had briefly gone to the top of the timesheet and Russell’s Mercedes teammate was eventually 0.133 seconds off pole with Piastri taking fourth place.
The McLaren driver was 0.142 seconds behind teammate Norris and it will be an all-Ferrari third row with Lewis Hamilton in fifth, 0.331 seconds off, and Charles Leclerc sixth, 0.395 seconds behind pole.
Seventh went to Red Bull’s home hero Max Verstappen, who was 0.455 seconds behind Norris, and he will share the fourth row with temporary teammate Liam Lawson as he is replacing the injured Isack Hadjar.
Gabriel Bortoleto qualified ninth for Audi and Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad rounded out the top ten on the day he achieved his fifth, straight Q3 appearance.
Pierre Gasly was just a tenth away from Q3 as he took P11 for Alpine and will share the sixth row with former teammate and Racing Bulls stand-in Yuki Tsunoda upon his Formula 1 return.
A late improvement from Nico Hulkenberg means P13, meaning Gasly’s teammate Franco Colapinto dropped to P14 ahead of Haas driver Esteban Ocon in P15.
Rounding out the Q2 drop zone was Alex Albon, whose teammate Carlos Sainz suffered a second, consecutive Q1 exit as he took P17 on the weekend he has signed a Williams contract extension.
It was an encouraging result for Aston Martin, who confirmed the step forward it has made with its upgraded engine and chassis despite drivability issues in the sprint sessions.
Fernando Alonso took P18 with teammate Lance Stroll in P19, while Bearman’s fears that Haas had regressed to becoming the ‘second worst team’ came true as he qualified P20.
That was ahead of only newcomer Cadillac, which was a second off Q2 and 1.7 seconds behind Piastri’s Q1 benchmark with Valtteri Bottas taking P21 and Sergio Perez last in P22.
So congratulations to Lando Norris with pole. As overtaking is tricky thanks to the narrow, old school circuit at Zandvoort, the McLaren is looking good and it will be interesting if Norris can achieve another race victory following Hungary last month.
Dutch Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1:11.163
2 George Russell Mercedes 1:11.265
3 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:11.296
4 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes 1:11.305
5 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:11.494
6 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:11.558
7 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Ford 1:11.618
8 Liam Lawson Red Bull-Ford 1:11.733
9 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 1:12.079
10 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls-Ford 1:12.185
11 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Mercedes 1:12.616
12 Yuki Tsunoda Racing Bulls-Ford 1:12.627
13 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 1:12.797
14 Franco Colapinto Alpine-Mercedes 1:12.800
15 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari 1:13.137
16 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes 1:13.182
17 Carlos Sainz Williams-Mercedes 1:13.574
18 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Honda 1:13.650
19 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Honda 1:13.818
20 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari 1:13.826
21 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac-Ferrari 1:14.371
22 Sergio Perez Cadillac-Ferrari 1:14.600
Lando Norris seized a spectacular pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix under the threat of rain, edging out Mercedes’ George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in the final minutes of Qualifying.
The McLaren driver braved one more lap as the weather worsened at the Circuit Zandvoort, earning the top spot with a time of 1m 11.163s in a tense conclusion to the session.
While he comprehensively beat Russell by a tenth, the Mercedes pair were extremely close as they took P2 and P3, with Oscar Piastri securing P4 after he looked like the fastest driver on track for the majority of Qualifying.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were next on the timesheets, heading Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson, who wasn’t far off the lead Red Bull, while Gabriel Bortoleto and Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly came the closest to making it into Q3, but lost out by less than a tenth and qualified ahead of his former team mate Yuki Tsunoda, who was 0.102s adrift of the lead Racing Bulls car upon his return to the grid.
Nico Hulkenberg wound up P13 for Audi, leading the second Alpine of Franco Colapinto, Haas’ Esteban Ocon and Williams’ Alex Albon.
In another frustrating session for Sainz, he was eliminated from Q1 with a tiny deficit of 0.022s to his team mate, settling for P17 from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll who are yet to extract the most from their upgraded power unit.
Ollie Bearman was another to be outqualified by his Haas counterpart as he was knocked out in P20, where he will line up just in front of Cadillac drivers Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.
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Lando Norris conceded that he was “a little surprised” by his pole position in Qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Briton not expecting such a turnaround having felt that he and the team had struggled earlier in the day.
After losing out on P2 to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the Sprint, Norris returned to action again for Qualifying later on Saturday and McLaren soon caught the eye with their performance, both cars having looked quick during Q1.
This continued into Q2 – with Oscar Piastri setting the pace in each of the opening segments – but it was Norris who came out on top in Q3, the World Champion claiming his 18th career pole position via an effort of 1m 11.163s.
Reflecting on his performance after the session, Norris admitted that he had not anticipated the result as he explained: “It doesn’t get any better. A little surprised honestly but, yeah, a decent lap.
“I was pushing because you see how close it is, so you know every one hundredth, two hundredths can make a big difference in the end.
“But just a good turnaround, a good turnaround from earlier today where I felt like we struggled a little bit. Today we certainly felt very strong. The team did a good job, so credit to them on trying to get a little bit more out of the car and it certainly helped me today.”
Pushed on whether the team had made many changes on the car between the Sprint and Qualifying, Norris responded: “I mean, we had to try something because what we had before wasn’t going to be enough.
“We made some small changes, nothing that was going to make us gain two tenths or one tenth even, but enough to maybe give me a little more confidence.
“On a track like Zandvoort, you need good confidence in the car and you want to attack a lot, so I felt like I could do that more today and it paid off.”
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George Russell wasn’t too disappointed to miss out on pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Mercedes driver pleased to be “back in my groove” after qualifying P2 behind Lando Norris.
After converting pole to victory in the Zandvoort Sprint, Russell was firmly in contention to secure the top spot again, but ultimately lost out by 0.102s to a sublime final lap by Norris just as the rain began to fall.
The pair even raced each other for a short time towards the end of Q3, and Russell will be hoping to do the same in the Grand Prix whilst simultaneously keeping third-placed Kimi Antonelli at bay, which would help him further reduce his deficit in the standings.
“Lando did a great job, so congrats to him and McLaren,” Russell said after Qualifying. “It was a strong session. I thought we had it in there just to fight for pole, but P2 I’m pretty satisfied with, especially after going back after such a tough last few races before the break, sort of get in my groove again and try and fight with them tomorrow.
“As I said, I feel in a good place and just sort of feel myself again, which is really important. It was really nice to drive around here and these cooler temperatures made the track feel really fast, so it was a real joy for us all to drive and looking forward to the race.”
Antonelli understandably wasn’t as happy about his Qualifying result as errors continued to blight his weekend in the Netherlands.
Bouncing back from missing out on the Sprint podium, he very briefly held P1 before Russell and Norris completed their efforts but, despite his frustration, only 0.031s separated the Italian from his team mate.
Giving his verdict on Qualifying, Antonelli said: “It was a difficult session for me, overall. I always found myself on the back foot, and then the last lap I did a mistake in Turn 1, I lost a couple of tenths and it was my mistake. A shame for that, because we had a real shot for pole.
“In Q3 I thought we had a shot, we had a chance. But when I started the last lap in Q3, I saw I was two-tenths down in Sector 1, and I was like, ‘this is going to be difficult’, but then I was able to make it up throughout the rest of the lap. So, yeah, shame for that, but all to play for tomorrow.”
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Max Verstappen was confident that he had not “left anything on the table” in Qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, with the Red Bull driver having to settle for P7 after experiencing “limitations” in the car.
Having ended the Sprint in sixth earlier in the day, Verstappen tried to give his home fans something to cheer about during the afternoon’s running but was unable to match the pace of McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari, putting him in seventh place for Sunday’s race.
While he looked to be closer to the front than he had been in SQ3 on Friday, the four-time World Champion conceded that he was disappointed by the gap that remained.
“Unfortunately the car didn’t really change a lot, so I just had the same balance limitations as I had yesterday,” said Verstappen.
“There was not a lot more in it, to be honest. I didn’t really feel like I left anything on the table, it’s just not where I wanted to be.”
In terms of whether the team need to wait for more updates to try and move nearer to their rivals – or if more can still be extracted from their current package – the Dutchman added: “I think some fundamental things in the car hopefully we can fix for next year.
“The rest is maybe trying, of course, to find a bit more performance, but we’ll see in the coming races.”
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