ZANDVOORT, The Netherlands, August 24 – Lando Norris became the first person to beat Max Verstappen to pole position at the Dutch Grand Prix with a stunning lap in his McLaren.
Verstappen has monopolised this race since it returned to the calendar in 2021 after a 36-year gap but Norris beat him by 0.356 seconds.
Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri was third, 0.499secs slower than the Briton, with Mercedes’ George Russell fourth.
Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in the second session and will start 12th after a mistake at the penultimate corner on his final lap.
The seven-time champion also faces a stewards’ investigation into whether the impeded Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in the first session of qualifying.
Norris, on a strong run of form but still seeking a second win to add to his maiden victory in Miami back in May, said: “An amazing day, nice to be back and start with a pole.
“It was a nice lap. The qualifying was always pretty smooth and put in some good laps especially the one at the end.
“I felt comfortable. The car was feeling amazing. We have some upgrades on the car for the first time in a while and everything is working well.”
Verstappen, who has never been beaten in a grand prix at Zandvoort but has not won since the Spanish Grand Prix six races ago, said: “The whole qualifying (we) just lacked a bit of pace. I’m still very happy to be on the front row.
“We have these gusts of wind coming in every lap is different so you can’t build.
“But after yesterday this is a good result. Hopefully the car will be OK in the race. We will give it a good go but when you are more than 0.3secs behind in qualifying you have to be realistic.”
Piastri said: “Just didn’t do a good enough job with the lap. The second lap wasn’t quite what I needed. The car has been very quick this weekend so a bit disappointed.”
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was fifth, 0.387secs slower than team-mate Verstappen after some driver-coaching at Silverstone this week as part of Red Bull’s attempts to improve his form.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took sixth ahead of an impressive showing from Fernando Alonso in seventh in the Aston Martin.
Alex Albon was eighth fastest in the upgraded Williams, ahead of Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.
A step forward from McLaren
Norris had looked the favourite for pole ever since making a strong impression in Friday practice and he delivered in style.
The McLaren has not been upgraded since the Miami developments that turned it in a front-runner overnight after starting the season behind Red Bull and Ferrari.
This upgrade introduced for the start of the second part of the season is not as big as the Miami one but Piastri said it was “doing what we expected” and it enabled Norris to dominate on a track that so far Verstappen has effectively owned.
Norris came into the weekend admitting he had not been driving at the level of a world champion so far this season and had been making too many mistakes.
And he will be determined to notch up a second win to back up his claim that he still has a chance of closing the 78-point lead Verstappen has in the championship.
What happened to Hamilton?
Mercedes had looked quick on Friday but their car was not quite on the pace when it mattered in qualifying and Russell ended up 0.571secs off pole.
Even so, Hamilton should have joined his team-mate in the top 10 shoot-out and was on course to do on his final lap before a snap at the rear on the exit of Turn 13 cost him time all the way to the line and he failed to progress through by 0.103secs.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, his weekend compromised by a gearbox failure that restricted him to just seven laps in the only dry practice session, joined him outside the top 10 after fighting the rear end of his car throughout qualifying.
“I made a mistake in the last corner and lost about 0.1secs and that put me out of Q3 but even then I wasn’t fast enough just in general.
“I struggled in the middle sector with the car being very oversteer-y and that’s where I lost most of my time, but also in the last sector.
“Now all I can do is try to do my best but I don’t expect it to be a great race.”
