George Russell has pipped Lando Norris by four hundredths to take sprint pole at the Dutch Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver set an 11.567 and then hung on as the two Ferraris and Max Verstappen failed to improve on their final attempts in SQ3. Russell will be looking to turn a perfect start to the second half of the season into a fight back against teammate Kimi Antonelli\u2019s dominance.<\/p>\n
The pole for the Englishman came despite him not topping SQ1 or SQ2, but when it mattered for the first time this weekend, he was two and a quarter tenths faster than his Italian teammate. But that didn\u2019t stop him from taking his third sprint pole by under a tenth ahead of both Norris and Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n
Russell got engaged to his long-time partner Carmen Montero Mundt during the summer break and quipped on Mercedes team radio after his Sprint pole was confirmed: “Nice one! Must be a bit lighter after that engagement ring!”<\/p>\n
Leclerc managed to split the two McLarens; he was a hundred and a half behind Norris as he put his Ferrari over a tenth ahead of Oscar Piastri, both struggling to repeat the pace they managed to top SQ1 and SQ2 respectively.<\/p>\n
While championship leader Antonelli had to settle for fifth, two and a quarter tenths off his teammate\u2019s pole position. The Italian failed to qualify on the front row in the sprint format this season, having been compromised by an early error, going three tenths ahead of Max Verstappen. Lewis Hamilton could only manage seventh, the Ferrari driver nearly a further tenth behind his former title rival.<\/p>\n
Antonelli also revealed the damage cost twenty-five points of downforce, and it was his mistake by carrying too much speed at the final corner before starting his lap.<\/p>\n
Russell said, \u201cThe lap felt really good to be honest. It came together nicely. It’s always difficult when you have one shot on the soft tyre. McLaren look quick, and Ferrari, but I’m glad to pull it off. The big points are on Sunday [but] I’ll try and carry this momentum into tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris added, \u201cI think reasonably happy, still a good position. It was a reasonable lap. Considering how close it was, I could have easily been first, or easily been fourth or fifth. A good qualifying, close between all the teams, which is exactly what we expected. Just, of course, a little bit disappointed to be P2 instead of P1. Just the step onto the soft, there was probably a little bit more grip that I didn\u2019t quite get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton trails Antonelli by fifty points in the Drivers’ Championship, with Russell a further nine points adrift. Points are on offer to the top-eight finishers in the sprint.<\/p>\n
Pierre Gasly was best of the midfield, putting his upgraded Alpine a quarter of a tenth faster than Gabriel Bortoleto, with Arvid Lindblad a further tenth and a half behind. The Frenchman was the only Alpine running the upgrades. Lindblad\u2019s regular teammate Liam Lawson missed out on SQ3 by four tenths. Lawson driving for Red Bull after Isack Hadjar injured his wrist.<\/p>\n
Lawson seemed confused by why he was so far off the cut as he out-qualified his Racing Bulls replacement Yuki Tsunoda by a hundredth, a decent effort in the new generation of cars and his first qualifying since Abu Dhabi last December.<\/p>\n
Franco Colapinto put his Alpine thirteenth as he went just under two tenths faster than Nico Hulkenberg, while Alex Albon split the Haas duo. Esteban Ocon went four tenths faster than the Williams driver.<\/p>\n
But his Haas teammate Ollie Bearman was fastest of those knocked out in SQ1. Bearman had warned on Friday that the team has slipped to the \u201ctenth best team\u201d, for the second Q1 or SQ1 session in a row he was knocked out at the first hurdle.<\/p>\n
The Englishman was knocked out by his teammate\u2019s improvement, that left him a hundredth ahead of Carlos Sainz. Honda went into this weekend hoping their new power unit would deliver up to half a second\u2019s worth of improvement, but both Aston Martins found themselves knocked out at the first hurdle.<\/p>\n
Fernando Alonso last after a problem with his AMR26’s straight-line mode cost him crucial lap time. The Spanish veteran had finished twelfth fastest in the only practice session. Valtteri Bottas out-qualified Cadillac teammate Sergio Perez by seven hundredths, as they completed the field<\/p>\n
\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 DUTCH GP \u2013 Kimi Antonelli a tenth faster than Lando Norris in practice ahead of a possible tight sprint qualifying<\/a><\/p>\n George Russell has pipped Lando Norris by four hundredths to take sprint pole at the Dutch Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver set an 11.567 and then hung on as the two Ferraris and Max Verstappen failed to improve on their final attempts in SQ3. Russell will be looking to turn a perfect start to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2339,390,423,589,590,709,814,1131,1287,1290,1298,1401,1439,1882,2225,2190],"class_list":["post-16319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-session-reports","tag-2339","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-circuit-zandvoort","tag-dutch-gp","tag-dutch-grand-prix","tag-ferrari","tag-george-russell","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-mclaren-mercedes","tag-mercedes","tag-netherlands","tag-north-holland","tag-sprint-qualifying","tag-sprint-qualifying-report","tag-zandvoort"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16321,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16319\/revisions\/16321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n