Norris denies Verstappen a fourth consecutive home pole at Zandvoort · RaceFans

Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen by three tenths of a second to take pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

Norris denied Verstappen his fourth successive pole at his home grand prix with his final lap in qualifying. Oscar Piastri will start the race from third on the grid, with George Russell fourth for Mercedes.

Q1

The track was dry as drivers prepared to head out on track for the start of Q1. However the radars showed signs of rain moving in from the west and race control declared a 40% chance it would hit the track before qualifying ended.

Everyone who headed out onto the circuit with new soft tyres, that they had no opportunity to use in final practice. However, one driver who did not take to the track when the pit exit opened was Logan Sargeant. Despite a commendable effort from the Williams mechanics, his car could not be repaired in time for qualifying, meaning that he would not participate in the session and will start Sunday’s grand prix last on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton set the early pace with a 1’11.375, just two-thousandths of a second quicker than Lando Norris in second with team mate Oscar Piastri behind him. Max Verstappen’s first effort put him third between the two McLarens, while Pierre Gasly put his Alpine into the top five after the early runs.

Sergio Perez was unhappy with Hamilton after coming across the Mercedes at the exit of turn nine on his hot lap, which he abandoned soon after. The stewards confirmed they would investigate the incident after qualifying.

As the cars prepared to leave the pits in the final minutes, there were four drivers facing elimination thanks to Sargeant occupying the final slot of the grid – the two RBs of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda as well as the Sauber duo, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

While both Bottas and Zhou improved on their final attempts, both remained rooted to the bottom of the standings and were out. Tsunoda managed to go safe in 12th place, which dropped Esteban Ocon out in his Alpine in 17th. But while Ricciardo improved with his last effort, he missed the cut by just over a tenth of a second, meaning he was also knocked out in 16th.

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Q1 result

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Q2

The skies were beginning to darken as the second segment of qualifying began, but there was no rain in the air for now. The two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr were the only drivers to head out early, putting an initial banker lap in on used soft tyres, Leclerc’s a tenth quicker than his team mate’s.

Eventually the rest of the field joined the track. Piastri was the first driver out, posting a 1’10.505 on fresh softs to go to the top of the times, before that was beaten by team mate Norris by just nine-thousandths of a second.

George Russell got within six-hundredths of a second of the McLarens with his attempt on fresh tyres, but his team mate was half a second off. Verstappen, meanwhile, could not get within three tenths of his nearest championship rival on a clean set of softs, ending up fourth.

As the track fell quiet with all 15 drivers returning to the pit lane, Sainz sat on the bubble of elimination in tenth place and would almost certainly need to improve in order to secure passage to Q3. The five drivers who were set to be knocked out were Kevin Magnussen, Gasly, Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg and Alexander Albon.

Neither of the Haas drivers could find enough time to threaten the top ten and were eliminated with Hulkenberg 14th and Magnussen slowest in 15th. Tsunoda also could not make the cut and was knocked out in 13th.

But Albon secured a triumph for Williams by going seventh with his final effort, while Gasly also reached the top ten in ninth. That meant two big names were surprisingly knocked out of the session: Sainz in 11th and Hamilton in 12th.

An incredibly close session ended with less than four tenths of a second covering Norris’ quickest time to Fernando Alonso in tenth, with the entire field of 15 cars covered by no more than eight tenths.

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Q2 result

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Q3

As the top 10 shootout got underway it became clear the anticipated rain was not going to hit the track. With the McLaren drivers and Verstappen both opting to forgo a second attempt in Q2, they each had a fresh set of softs to use for their first run in Q3. Piastri was the first over the line, posting the opening provisional pole time of 1’10.193, which Verstappen was just three hundredths of a second slower than with his first attempt.

But Norris’s first lap was superior to both. He jumped up into provisional pole position with a 1’10.074, over a tenth faster than his team mate’s opening effort. Russell moved into fourth, just under half a second slower than Norris, while Leclerc’s first effort put him in fifth on a used set of softs.

Aston Martin chose to wait until the other eight cars were in the pit lane to send their pair out onto the track for their sole efforts of the session. Alonso moved into a provisional fifth with his lap, telling his team he “cannot do more than this” after crossing the line.

Verstappen was the first of the pole contenders to start his final lap at the end of the session, improving significantly to go quickest of all with a 1’10.029. However, any hopes the Dutch crowd had of a Verstappen pole were well and truly dashed when Norris crossed the line to go over three tenths of a second quicker than the championship leader. Piastri was the last over the line and although he improved on his own best, he was unable to secure a place on the front row.

Norris therefore became the first driver other than Verstappen to secure pole position at the modern Zandvoort since its return to the calendar in 2021, with Verstappen starting alongside him on the front row. Piastri will start third, with Russell ahead of Perez and Leclerc in sixth. Alonso dropped to seventh ahead of Albon, with Stroll and Gasly rounding out the top ten on the grid.

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Q3 result