The Saturday in F1 Dutch GP was straightforward but the positions changed with Oscar Piastri getting ahead, as Isack Hadjar surprised everyone with a Top 4 finish.
After showing solid pace until FP3, McLaren’s Lando Norris lost at the pre-final hurdle on Saturday in F1 Dutch GP qualifying at Zandvoort. He missed out on pole to teammate Oscar Piastri by 0.012s after failing to set his best time in either of the two runs in Q3.
He reckoned he lost pole at the start of his lap and no matter how much he pushed in the rest of the lap, it didn’t matter. Even though he is in the front, Norris acknowledges that it is difficult to pass teammate. For Piastri, he was relieved that he could set his best lap when it mattered.
He admitted that he was hard done by couple of corners which irked him all-through the weekend, but he managed to get it together in Q3 to edge out Norris. No one could come close to the McLaren F1 pair, but it was improvement from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to end up third.
He felt the best in qualifying after lots of changes to the car from Friday to Saturday and even after FP3. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda missed out on Q3 finish and was left confused by the result after what he felt was a good lap without any mistakes from his end.
It was same for Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who just missed out on Q3 finish. But it was step up from the Italian after the early end in practice. Teammate George Russell was ahead of the Ferrari F1 pair in a win, but was a bit disappointed to not be close to McLaren and Verstappen.
For Ferrari, Charles Leclerc felt downbeat after failing to improve by much in Q3. He felt he didn’t maximise, but teammate Lewis Hamilton was a bit more upbeat after adopting different strategy to teammate. He didn’t wish to reveal the steps he took, but was more chirpy than usual.
Piastri: “It felt pretty good. You know, not perfect, but I think with the wind being so strong, there are some places that are never going feel perfect. So, it felt good and a good improvement from pretty much every other lap I did this weekend. So, it was nice to be able to pull it out then. But yeah, it took a lot of hard work, some patience in trying to find the time, and eventually I got there. I made little tweaks here and there, but I think just trying to — I think in qualifying when you get a few more goes at it, a few more sets, naturally it’s a little bit easier to find a little bit more. Obviously, the pressure is much higher than practice. But yeah, just felt like this weekend took a lot of attempts to try and improve in some places and eventually it was just enough attempts.
“So yeah, just trying to drive faster, essentially. I don’t know yet [about the race]. The tyre strategies from everyone are a bit different. I think us two are one of the only teams to have two Hards and a Medium. I think pretty much everyone else has just one Hard and one Medium. So, we’ve got that kind of up our sleeve, but it also kind of tells you a little bit of what most people are thinking, I guess. So, we’ll wait and see, but we’ve got some options available.”
Norris: “I mean, both felt pretty good. It feels quick around here, first of all, so I’ve been feeling pretty good the whole weekend, always in a good flow around here, which is important. Both my laps were good. I don’t think many people improved on their second runs, so I don’t know if the track got a little bit trickier or slower in the second run, but both were pretty close, I think. Again, within half a tenth or a tenth of pole position. So, yeah, tricky also with the wind. It can easily just favour you or not favour you. And yeah, one hundredth is pretty minimal. Even coming out of the last corner, I’m a little bit up and I lose like two hundredths by the time I get to the start-finish line and that’s pole position gone for me. No, there’s not too much to complain about. I think there were a couple of places where I wasn’t quite on a good enough limit and consistently losing a little bit too much lap time today and this weekend.
“So, some places and things I need to work on, but otherwise the laps were good, and I was still pretty happy. I would have loved to be on pole. I think that’s the thing that would have made me the happiest. But it’s been close all weekend. You just look at the results and I’ve been ahead. But I easily could have been behind by just losing half a tenth or a tenth here and there. So, it’s not like I’ve dominated it. I’ve just been ever so slightly ahead and it’s just switched the other way around for quali. But I still am confident for the race pace. We know that’s one of our strengths as a team. But I also know my main competitor is the guy ahead of me. We’ll see tonight. Of course, we always put the plan together, but with the other side and with Oscar and everything. So, it’s always a little bit trickier to beat that one guy. But at the same time, it’s a long race. We’ll see what we can do. I mean, yeah — no offence to Max — he was in a much slower car last year.
“So that helps a lot. Oscar’s in a much quicker car this year and the hardest guy to normally overtake is your team-mate, especially when in a quali like today where we were split by one hundredth. So yeah, I mean, it’s going to take some magic, some good strategy or incredible tyre saving or something. But it’s normally pretty difficult to overtake in the first place. It’s even harder to do that behind your team-mate. So, I’ll see what I can dream of tonight.”
Verstappen: “I mean, so far this weekend, we’ve been struggling for grip and general balance. Luckily in qualifying it was the best that I’ve felt all weekend. That’s, of course, what you like. It all just felt a bit more normal, a bit more together. Still not on the level of McLaren, of course, but at least to be P3 is very good for us. So, we did the right things in terms of setup directions. I’m very happy with that. It just made it a bit more fun — you had to push to the limit around here, which has some incredible layouts. We changed a lot. Even this morning it was still not good. So, then we changed other bits again and that made it feel a bit better. But it’s still quite tricky with the wind.
“It’s been very windy today and some corners you’re a bit guided by what the wind is doing. So, the car is pushing or sliding, and I guess we’re not the strongest at the moment, but still it was not bad. It’s a bit unknown, but I do think that what we have on the car should be more stable. But this season in general, our race pace has not been the best in terms of if you compare it to a qualifying lap. But I just hope that at least we can keep the guys behind us literally behind us in the race. What happens in front of me, I have no control over. I’ll just try to do the best I can from my side.”
Russell: “I am a bit disappointed with P5 today. That said, the field has been really tight since the beginning of the weekend, and we couldn’t take anything for granted. We didn’t put the lap together at the end of Q3 and, whilst we could have fought for the second row, it is where we deserved to be. Isack did an amazing job to get ahead of us so congratulations to him. We will see what we can do tomorrow. Our long run pace felt good in FP3, and I am therefore hopeful that we can be in the fight for the podium, irrespective of our starting position. We know that our battle remains with the Ferraris and the Red Bull of Max given the Constructors’ standings. Hopefully we can have a good Sunday and add some solid points.”
Hamilton: “I tried to have a slightly different approach to the weekend. Not going to go into details of what that is, but some tweaks, before I even got here, and then through the weekend, and it’s been a lot smoother. Yesterday the car was a bit unpredictable and I think we made some changes, maybe the wind makes it a little bit difficult as well. But I think we were looking for progress, and I feel like I have had that this weekend. I’ve not been in Q3 for some time, so I am grateful for that. definitely encouraging to at least on my side of the garage to have a better result, as the boys in the garage deserve it, and the team deserves it. Happy I could be there or thereabouts, but we’re not where we want to be. To be six tenths off, in qualifying on a track like this, that’s a huge amount. So we’ve got to understand why that is because Charles is P1 at the last race, but naturally, we do still have that deficit; we’ve had it all year long.
“As I said, there’s some things I changed which enabled me to start on the right foot, better foot. My first lap yesterday [in FP1] was quickest at the time – then the next lap was a spin, but the car as I said is quite unpredictable. I think the with the set-up changes, we have worked well together with the engineers this weekend. It’s not been up and down on changes, it’s been quite stable. We just made small tweaks, really, really small tweaks. And therefore just been trying to gain more and more confidence in the car. I think that’s what’s happened the last couple of days. Biggest limit for us, I think is a combination of things. But ultimately we need more load to go through the corners as fast as McLaren here, for some reason. Now is that load or is that coming from the tyres, difficult to know, maybe they getting their tyres in a different operating windows to us potentially, or a combination of both. I mean ultimately, McLaren definitely have more downforce than everybody but then they’re not very draggy. If we were to match them we’d have to go up a couple of levels of wing but have the efficiency of a lower wing, then it’s a combination of getting the car to be more stable through corner, the wind makes it tricky, tailwind into Turn 1 and crosswind into places, and I think this car is quite sensitive to wind. It definitely feels like it’s been one of the most solid couple days so far of the year.
“We pretty much started the same, he went a different way this morning. I just stayed steady and stayed where I was, which I think is the right decision for me. I tried where he went many times through the year and it’s never been positive for me. I’m definitely learning to extract the best from this car and realise that I’m the type that’s always searching for more, like everywhere. It’s a little bit in the tyre pressures, a little bit in the blanket temperatures, a little bit in ride height, front, rear. I’m looking at everything – and I think what’s clear, the difference from where I was before, here you can’t be looking for those. You have to stay put most often. And I think that’s also the case with this generation of cars. For the race, I think it will be smart to split the strategies, given that we are trying to beat McLaren. It is definitely good that you have two drivers next to each other, so hopefully we can overcut and undercut the cars ahead of us.”
Leclerc: “It’s been a very difficult one, it’s the kind of weekend where I never really had the references going into quali. I didn’t really know still what to expect from the car, it was so inconsistent from FP1 to qualifying but it was difficult to take good references and that definitely didn’t help me but on the other hand it’s not an excuse. I didn’t do a good job in qualifying, especially in Q3 I didn’t put my lap together. I think P4 realistically was the best we could do with our car but it is what it is. Unfortunately it could have been worse, which P6 normally should be the worst it could get but it could have been worse, actually P6 is probably our strongest session of the weekend. We are maximising what we are having but I still believe I could have done a better job.
“I think it is just the characteristics of this track that are highlighting our weaknesses, like the long corners, 9 and 10, for example. It’s crazy how much we are losing in these two corners, and unfortunately, there’s not much that we can do. We changed a lot, a lot [on the car]. It was probably the biggest change from one day to another, that also…the consistency of the weekend, how to get through the weekend nicely, it wasn’t easy but we had to do it after such a poor Friday we had. Yeah, I did [see the fox]. It was going outside the track on the right side but it didn’t have much implications. I think it is the first time [to see a fox], but unfortunately, it didn’t bring any luck.”
After Aston Martin took headlines on Friday, Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar bounced back well in F1 qualifying. He missed FP2 due to issue and recovered well to secure his best result in fourth. The Frenchman was finally happy with his qualifying lap, as he eyes to be smart in the race.
Teammate Liam Lawson backed up Visa Cash App RB’s pace by finishing in the Top 10, but felt he had more in the tank. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was relatively okay with 10th, even though they looked better in practice. He thought P7-P8 was maximum they could have achieved anyways.
The main goal of getting into Q3 was completed unlike Lance Stroll, who couldn’t set a lap time after misjudgement in his first lap in Q1. The Canadian was not in the mood and even left media pen midway a question. Williams’ Alexander Albon was another to be downbeat after finishing just 15th.
He felt the team left it too late in Q2 which hurt his prep lap and he had no tyres to go any faster when Q3 was possible as shown by Carlos Sainz. The Thai felt it is always tricky decision to make, but was frustrated to be in that position more often than not in F1 2025.
Sainz was satisfied to make it in Top 10 to keep Williams in the hunt. It was so-so for the likes of Sauber and Alpine, where Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly made it in Q2, but Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto just missed out due to tight field. Haas’ Oliver Bearman reckoned the team lacked on the soft tyre to be knocked out in Q1, as Esteban Ocon felt the pace was there for both to make it in Q2.
Hadjar: “Very happy. Finally, I am quite satisfied with what I did. It was a good job. To be honest, the car [was] exactly like I wanted. It was responding really well, especially on that final lap. Probably, we got a bit lucky with the wind gusts, I don’t know. We need to look at the data. But yeah, I pulled an amazing lap and it sticks because the car was great. It’s probably the best lap I’ve had this year because it’s a very hard track, really demanding. And I put it all on the line, especially that final corner. I thought I did pretty well there to actually gain one more tenth. And yeah, that was special.
“I mean, he’s starting on the clean side of the grid. He has great starts usually. So actually, I expect him to probably overtake a car ahead, if anything. I haven’t experienced it, obviously. We limited mileage yesterday, but looking at Liam, he was pretty fast yesterday. The car is healthy. It’s fast on one lap, so it will be fast on many more laps. To be fair, I don’t think it’s really difficult to overtake here. Looking at how long the straight is and the DRS zone starts very early, so if they have more pace, they will overtake. And that’s it. We need to accept it and be smart.”
Alonso: “I think our forecast before qualifying was P7-P8, so yeah, we are P10, maybe not the greatest place to start with but every weekend we aim to be Q3 on Saturday and points on Sunday, so lets see if we are in points in the race and more or less, we achieve our goal. That’s [wind] what happened to be in Q3, in Turn 10 I lost two tenths and a half compared to my Q2, so little bit more luck or less luck in quali can change few positions and how tight it is and everything, but yeah, we were on the unlucky side today. I think the pace was not there anymore in FP3, we were P12, so we were not as fast as yesterday anymore. On the race, lets see, it is difficult to pass here. It is not the best place to start but we put a little bit more weight to the race with our tyre selection, we kept two hards and we sacrificed little bit qualifying, we will see tomorrow if it works or not.”
Bortoleto: “Qualifying has been a bit though today. I bottomed out a couple of times in Q1, which cost me some time, and the conditions were rather unstable overall. After Q1, I asked the team to check the floor and make some adjustments within the parameters, but even with that, the lap in Q2 just wasn’t enough to get me into Q3. On top of it, I caught some dirty air from Yuki in the middle sector on my last attempt, which didn’t help, and I lost a bit of time compared to my earlier push. I think Q3 could have been possible if everything had gone perfectly, but that wasn’t the case. Still, tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll focus on making the most of the opportunities we’ll get in the race. Our race pace was decent yesterday, so if we stick to our plan and execute well, we might gain some positions and climb through the field.”
Albon: “I think in every lap we’ve done this weekend, when we’ve been on track, we’ve been in the top 10 most of the time. We were quite comfortably in the top 10 in Q1, and we were quite comfortably in the top 10 in Q2 run one. And then basically when we came out the garage there was a… I must have been waiting for about two and a half minutes to get out the pitlane. And then by the time we got out of the pitlane, all the people that came out the pitlane before were on their push laps. So then you do a slow out-lap because you have to let all the cars pass who are on the push lap. By the time that happens, you go into Turn 1 and the tyres are absolutely nowhere. You cannot do anything honestly. We know we’re on the back foot in terms of our window. To get the tyres to work is narrower than other teams. I think you see that Carlos was struggling in Q1. I was okay in Q1, and then we’ve seen it in so many tracks we’ve gone to this year so far. If we don’t get our clean out-lap, we’re nowhere.
“I think our out-lap is normally around this track, so far this weekend, has been about 10-15 seconds a lap quicker than the people around us. And my Q2 run two out-lap was maybe 20-25 seconds slower than my normal out-lap. So you can imagine that normally doesn’t go well when you go into Turn 1. It’s just frustrating because it doesn’t make it easy. It doesn’t make it easy for us in many ways because obviously, I’m angry in the moment. But as a strategist, when your window is a bit smaller than everyone else’s, to get the clean air and to get the right space on track is very difficult. And I feel for us. I think we basically need to figure out the tyres first. That’s the main issue and then everything else will come easier. That’s where the frustration is. Carlos has been good all weekend. And I think that’s where the car is. I’m pretty confident I would be in Q3 if I didn’t have the cold tyres for the Q2 run. That’s just how it is.”
Gasly: “Overall, I am happy with the outcome of today’s Qualifying and I am pleased with how we turned things around as a team from Free Practice 3. We seemed to lack pace earlier today so to be in the fight for Q3 was good. Even though we are in fourteenth place, only a tenth and half was the difference to reaching Q3 and a hundredth between another two positions such are the small margins. Of course, we need more, but considering where we are with the car at the moment, we can be pleased with our effort. These close margins makes it exciting and puts even more on both the team and driver not to make any mistakes and maximise everything. We know this is not an easy track to overtake but we will see what we can do tomorrow. I would not mind some rain! It is a race and anything can happen.”
Bearman: “The first run went really well and I had a good feeling in the car, it seemed like we were in a good window. On the second run we were on used tyres and we still looked to be pretty decent, but then going onto new tires everyone else improved and I didn’t manage to make that improvement. I had a very different feeling underneath me compared to the previous set of tyres, and there is a small change we made between the two runs, so we need to see if that was the cause of our issues or not. Our race pace has been okay, I’m not super hopeful, but we’ll see what we can do.”
Stroll: “Nothing more to say really. It’s very frustrating and yeah, it sucks. Just dipped a wheel on the grass, yeah, just [a] misjudgement. No, the car was too broken [to continue]. That, I mean, is the worst feeling. I mean, I was comfortable in the car throughout all the practice sessions, FP1, all these things. [The package this weekend looked] fairly strong, yeah. (Goes off when being asked a question).”
Here’s crash for Lance Stroll: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-gp-qualifying-stroll-crashes-out-in-q1.1841887609660343480
Here’s moment with fox: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-gp-qualifying-leclerc-spots-a-fox-on-track.1841889881624605473
Here’s how F1 Dutch GP qualifying panned out