Norris Takes Dutch Grand Prix Pole by a Tenth as Rain Shakes Up Zandvoort Qualifying
Lando Norris beat George Russell to pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort by 0.102 seconds, edging the Mercedes driver in a rain-affected qualifying session that shuffled the order and left the top four separated by barely a tenth and a half.
The session turned on the weather. Rain arrived late, prompting drivers to bank their laps early before a shower made further improvement nearly impossible. Norris's McLaren and Russell's Mercedes had already set their times when the track went slick, locking the front row in place.
The margins behind them were razor-thin. Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader heading into the weekend and Russell's team-mate at Mercedes, finished third — just 0.031 seconds behind Russell and 0.009 seconds ahead of McLaren's Oscar Piastri. Antonelli had briefly jumped to the top of the times when he crossed the line on his final lap, but the gap to pole told the story of Turn One: he lost 0.2 seconds there, taking it too cautiously in the damp conditions, and missed pole by 0.133 seconds. (BBC Sport)
Russell pointed to a mistake of his own. He said his tyres got too hot on the final run and he lost time in Turn Eight, a costly slip given how close the field was. Russell arrived on pole momentum, having won Saturday's Sprint race — the shorter, roughly 100-kilometre dash separate from the main Grand Prix — after converting his own pole position into victory ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Norris.
Ferrari locked out the third row, with Lewis Hamilton qualifying fifth ahead of Leclerc by 0.064 seconds. Max Verstappen, the hometown hero, could manage only seventh in what is scheduled to be the final Dutch Grand Prix on the calendar — Zandvoort drops off the schedule after 2026. Verstappen was nearly beaten by his own team-mate: Liam Lawson, standing in for the injured Isack Hadjar who broke his wrist in the lead-up to the weekend, qualified eighth, just 0.0115 seconds slower.
Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) and Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) completed the top ten. Further back, Fernando Alonso tumbled from 12th to 18th after failing to improve on his final lap and describing his out lap — the slow lap drivers do to warm up tyres before a fast run — as a "mess". Yuki Tsunoda, returning to the grid at Racing Bulls in a seat-swap that sent Lawson up to Red Bull, qualified 12th.
For Norris, pole at Zandvoort carries its own resonance. He won the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix by a season-topping margin of 22.8 seconds, and first claimed pole, victory and fastest lap in a single Grand Prix here in 2024. Converting pole into a race win on Sunday, though, is a different equation — especially with Mercedes showing strong Sprint pace and Antonelli, the points leader, lining up right behind him.
