Lando Norris Flies To Dutch Grand Prix Pole

Orange was the dominant colour come the end of qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, but not in the shade usually associated with local hero Max Verstappen. In fact, papaya came out on top courtesy of Lando Norris and his McLaren, who brilliantly demoted the Dutchman’s last attempt in an exciting finale to Q3. The McLaren proved its superiority – at least over a flying lap – by just 356 thousandths of a second. The on-form team also had Oscar Piastri in third place, albeit almost half a second down on his team-mate.

This was Norris’ fourth pole position, his third this season and McLaren now has 159 number one starts to its name. It was the first time since 1984 that McLaren secured what was its only other pole for the Dutch Grand Prix, forty years ago courtesy of Alain Prost.

The third free practice session provided little in the way of useful information, both because it was run on a wet track and because it only really lasted a little over a quarter of an hour, as there was a long pause following Logan Sargeant’s crash in the Williams.

By depriving second placed Max Verstappen of pole, Norris also scotched a potential meeting of two legends of Dutch sport. In fact, the Englishman was presented with the Pirelli Pole Position Award by Ruud Gullit, one of the greatest football players of the second half of the last century. Gullit won a European title with the Dutch national team in 1988, three Dutch championships, three Italian championships, two Champions Cups, two European Supercups, two Intercontinental Cups, two Netherlands Cups, one Coppa Italia and one English FA Cup, this last one in the role of player-manager for Chelsea.

Lando Norris – Pole

“An impressive Saturday. It’s nice to be back starting the second half of the season with pole position. Qualifying was pretty smooth, with good laps, especially the last one. The conditions today made it a little more challenging and with every lap you had to reassess how much more you could push and where the limits were.

“I felt very comfortable today, the car was strong, and the team have done a great job so far, so a big thank you to them for their hard work. I’m sure Max will put up a good fight at his home race tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to it and will work hard overnight to prepare with the team.”

Max Verstappen – P2

“I couldn’t quite fight for pole today against but we are doing everything we can to make the car as competitive as possible. I was happy to be on the front row, it is not quite as close as we would have liked but we will see what happens tomorrow. We are looking to optimise the balance of the car, especially as it is very windy on the track, but we will see how the car runs tomorrow and analyse the limited long runs we got yesterday. In the past we have been very strong in the race, which is a positive. It will also depend on the tyre degradation; we will need to see how much it will rain overnight and see how everything goes tomorrow. On pure pace, it will be difficult to beat the McLarens but anything can happen in Formula One so we will see. I will try my best tomorrow in front of my home crowd and we will see where we are.”

Oscar Piastri – P3

“The first half of the final lap was pretty solid, and then the second half wasn’t quite what I needed. The car has been very quick all weekend and I’m a little disappointed to not be on the front row. I’ve got a very good race car underneath me though. The pace did look good in the long runs and we’ve been pretty quick the last few weekends so, hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow, get a good start and try to make up a couple of spots.”

Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport

“It all looked very closely matched during two free practice sessions and the first two parts of qualifying, but then in Q3, Norris made a step forward which put pole out of reach of his competitors, with a fantastic lap: 356 thousandths is a very significant advantage on a track that is only a little over four kilometres in length!

“Clearly, because of the bad weather and various interruptions, preparation for teams and drivers was far from optimal for the grid-deciding session. In those 60 minutes, it was clear the Soft offered peak performance on the first flying lap and so, the use of a new set saw a significant improvement in lap time, probably even superior to that offered by the evolution of the track conditions.

“As for possible scenarios for tomorrow’s race, the relatively little data gathered over three hours of free practice still confirmed the results of simulations prior to the event. On paper, the one-stop is quickest, with the C3/C1 combination preferable to a C2/C3: in the first case the pit stop window can be between laps 24 and 30, while for the second it should open four laps later and close on lap 34.”