The Saturday in F1 Dutch GP ended up dry with McLaren maintaining its top spot but Mercedes losing out a bit to Red Bull.
The Saturday in F1 Dutch GP at Zandvoort was expected to be wet especially for qualifying. But the weather remained dry for it after rain shower during FP3. The conditions didn’t change the order by much as McLaren continued to rumble.
But Mercedes did falter a bit where George Russell was still fourth, but Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q2. On top of that, he has grid penalty for impeding Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. The Brit conceded that the set-up changes on his side were too many eventually.
It limited him than Russell. Another on the bad day list was Ferrari. While Charles Leclerc was inside the Top 10 in a respectable position, Carlos Sainz was knocked out in Q2 too. The FP2 miss and lack of pace caught him up eventually, where both struggled.
It was better one for Red Bull against McLaren. While Lando Norris looked unbeatable, Max Verstappen still manage to cut through and relegate Oscar Piastri to third. The Dutchman, though, is not too certain about his race pace against the British outfit.
Both Norris and Piastri seem a tad confident, but the former has to get his first lap right. Apart from them, Perez was pleased to be in the Top 5 amid struggles, while the Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were good with double Top 10.
Norris: “I think both were good. I mean, especially my last lap in Quali Q3, Run 2 was by far my best lap. But I felt good all the way through qualifying, honestly. The car’s been strong all weekend. We felt comfortable. We felt strong. And especially come today in qualifying, since the first lap we did, I felt like always in a good rhythm. and It’s just not easy around here because it’s not an easy track, first of all. But it’s also even more difficult with the wind and the conditions and stuff. So just doing laps which are not mistake-free and not kind of locking up, not doing anything which would make me lose a little bit of confidence. And I just kept chipping away and improving every lap. So both were good, the car and I think myself too. As for the race, I mean, it’s obvious. I know my starts have not been my forte over the last probably… They’ve not been bad, honestly, I’m still up there with being one of the best average starters. I’ve just missed out on a couple of races and maybe slightly worse than what it’s been over the course of a season. There’s a couple of times when they’ve not been quite where they need to be have been a couple of times I’ve been on the front row. So like I said, they’ve not been for any certain reason. They’ve been different things each time. But I feel confident I put in a good amount of work to kind of try and make my starts a bit better. And tomorrow’s a new day.”
Verstappen: “I don’t know. I mean, I had a bit of a moment in 11-12, but that was also a bit my qualifying in general. I never really felt… Every run, there were always one or two corners where I felt like I was losing a lot of time with just the gust of wind. And it seemed like it was very sensitive for us. The car was really responding aggressively to it. And that’s why I think every single run that I did it was different. I just had a different balance every time. Yeah, it just made it very difficult. Q3, I think the first lap wasn’t too bad. Then I tried to push it a bit more, but everything just seems very snappy, very on the edge, I would say. But nevertheless, I mean, I’m happy to be on the front row. I think after Q1 and Q2, I mean, I’ve never really been in that top five region. Of course, I was trying to save tyres a bit because I only had four sets, but I never really felt that I was in the fight for pole. And then when you come out of qualifying on the front row, I think that’s OK. I mean, I would hope so, but I think when you see the gap, it’s going to be very tricky. Also, it just seems like Lando’s a bit happier in general with just the driving and how he feels. I’m a bit more all over the place with the balance, so I don’t know, maybe it stabilises a bit tomorrow, but I guess we’ll find out.”
Piastri: “I didn’t crash like last year, so that was good! No, I think until the last lap, it was pretty good. Obviously, I think with the pace we had with the car today, I think P3 is not exactly a result to be jumping up and down about. But no, I think the rest of qualifying was pretty good. It all ran smoothly and I think a lot of those things were positive, just didn’t quite nail it when I needed to at the end. So a bit disappointing there, but we’ve still got a lot of opportunities starting from where we are. I mean, if I can get myself into the lead, then that works well for me. But, yeah, I mean, I think the start is always a good opportunity to make up ground if you can. Yeah, obviously I want to finish as high as I can. And, yeah, if I can get into second, then obviously that makes life a little bit more straightforward for the team. But… I mean, I’m not going to do anything specific to try and make that happen. I want to try and win the race myself. And let’s see what I can try and do.”
Hamilton: “Yeah it was a difficult session. We made changes overnight that we couldn’t see in FP3 but it was the same for everybody, but we changed the car quite a bit, so it was a nightmare to drive. We both made set-up changes, but I made more. Yeah, the car was on bit more of a knife-edge. The car was massively snappy today, yesterday we had lots of understeer, we tried to dial that out, but we went too much the other way. It will be a struggle to get into the Top 10, probably.”
Sainz: “I was still keeping my hopes up given that I normally get up to speed very quickly and I could make it through Q3 today given the fact that I’ve been three weeks without touching the car, no dry running yesterday in a track like Zandvoort, we haven’t touched the soft tyre. Tricky balance, tricky wind, not our fastest track for us for sure, and yeah, all these things adding up, plus a bit of traffic in sector 2 with Nico, it cost me probably Q3. But yeah, maybe I was being optimistic by believing we could make it. In Q2 I just lacked the experience of yesterday, knowing what to do with the front wing, with the tyres, to set up the car for a new soft in Q2. And yeah, I paid the price. Not easy after the break as I said, not to do any laps on FP1, FP2, FP3 and go straight into quali with a soft tyre around Zandvoort, pushing flat out. I felt like I did some strong laps given the circumstance, but in the end, just the end with a bit of traffic, it was always going to be tricky.”
Alonso: “I am happy with my Qualifying today and both cars in Q3 is a positive result for us. It felt like a lottery sometimes out on track depending on how gusty it was, particularly in Turns 9 and 10. I wasn’t too comfortable in Q1 and Q2, but in the end I was happy with my lap in Q3. I felt like it was the maximum we could achieve today. Tomorrow the weather looks clear, so we will need to execute a good race and battle hard to keep some fast cars behind us.”
The faltering of Hamilton and Sainz allowed for Williams’ Alexander Albon and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly to make it inside the Top 10. While the Thai racer was eventually disqualified due to his floor, he showed good pace to make it in the Q3.
Both he and Logan Sargeant will make the rear of the grid after the American accepted his mistake in FP3 crash. The team tried all to be ready for qualifying but it wasn’t possible in the end. Alpine has two halves too, where Gasly was pleasantly surprised by Q3.
After practice, they looked to be nowhere but he managed to pull out a lap which teammate Esteban Ocon couldn’t, who was knocked out in Q1 itself. The Frenchman lamented the set-up choice and general difficulties since start of the weekend.
Although Visa Cash App RB’s Yuki Tsunoda made it in Q3, the Japanese F1 racer was not too happy after the performance drop from Friday to Saturday. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo was knocked out in Q1 itself along with the pair of Kick Sauber cars.
They were not happy with their performances with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu only just ahead of Sargeant who did not drive. Both the Haas cars made it out of Q2 as well, with Nico Hulkenberg doing a tad better after yet another off in FP3.
Gasly: “I’m very pleased with today’s effort. Before Qualifying, it was clear that we would have a challenge on our hands to progress through Q1 and into Q2, especially after a tough Friday Practice. In the end, we reached Q3 so I’m happy with that. We almost extracted the maximum from the car. We missed a little bit of lap time in Q3 but, even so, we’re inside the top 10 and we have put ourselves in a good position to fight for points in the race. We know we have a battle tomorrow with Lewis and Carlos starting behind us. It’s going to be a tough race but we will be ready for it. We just need to try and hang onto some of the cars starting ahead of us. If we can score points that will be great and that is the aim.”
Tsunoda: “I’m definitely disappointed, it feels like we stepped down quite a lot from FP2. I was happy with my lap, but for whatever reason we lacked quite a lot of pace compared to what we had. I thought we’d go through quite easily, but even in Q1 we struggled quite a lot, and it was pretty tight to get P10, so we’ll have to revise what happened. It’s not too bad of a place to start to score points, the last two days has been very inconsistent weather and we saw from last year in the race anything can happen, so I’ll try my best.”
Sargeant: “I feel okay, little bit sore, but I’m alright. It is what it is, we just have to get on with it. It was my mistake, I’ll take that. It was a small mistake with a big consequence, but most importantly, I am okay, we have to get the car fixed up. We are obviously on the backfoot but lets see in the race, you never what can happen. What happened is what I thought exactly happened. I just touched the kerb. I didn’t want to pull the car off that too quickly, to avoid what ended up happening, but the second I touched the grass that was it, so needed to pull it off before the grass, so I needed to pull it off just before the grass. The team definitely tried as much as they could in the time they had, ultimately I don’t think it was that close, I mean, I could have looked at the car at the end of FP3 and told you that wasn’t going to be ready, that’s just the way it goes. I feel for everyone working hard to get it ready, we will regroup on Sunday.”
Hulkenberg: “It was tough in quali and the wind really picked-up again in the afternoon, but it was the first clean run I’d had this weekend. Every other session I’ve had has been interrupted, and it’s been a very difficult build-up to qualifying. Now at least, I’ve produced good clean laps and that was actually pretty decent. I’m not too unhappy with how qualifying went but obviously you always have the feeling that because we missed so much yesterday, we’re a step behind chasing. Tomorrow’s going to be challenging as I didn’t have much practice, so I’ll just have to see how the car feels, react correctly, and make the most of it.”
Bottas: “When you look at the results from today’s qualifying, it’s clear that it’s not where we want to be – we want to keep making progress: this weekend, however, has proved tricky for us so far and today was no exception. This morning, the car had felt better in less breezy conditions, but as soon as the wind picked up, it amplified our weaknesses and inconsistencies, and we struggled with corner balance. Our car can be quite sensitive but, despite some traffic at the end of the lap, I feel we got out all we could from it. Tomorrow will not be easy, but this sport always throws you a chance, so we won’t give up and we will go in fighting. We know it will be hard to climb to the points, especially with overtaking being difficult, but this has to be our objective.”
Here’s how F1 Dutch GP qualifying panned out
Here’s Alexander Albon getting DQ’ed
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