Oracle Red Bull Racing

2024 Dutch Grand Prix - Qualifying Report

Max Verstappen narrowly missed out on a fourth straight home pole position as he was edged out of top spot in qualifying for the Dutchman by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

With

Max

the

front

row

for

the

start,

Checo

bolstered

the

team’s

hope

major

points

haul

claiming

fifth

place

the

grid

for

tomorrow’s

Dutch

Grand

Prix.

FP3

A heavy crash at Turn 3 for Williams’ Loqan Sargeant in wet conditions, early in the final hour of practice, meant that running was suspended for a whopping 44 minutes while the barriers were repaired. The track action got underway with just two minutes left on the clock, and following a frenzied rush to get in a lap on Intermediate tyres, Max ended the session in P17 on a largely meaningless timesheet. Checo, however, was caught in traffic on the resumption and he couldn’t make it around to start a lap before the chequered flag was waved.

Spray at Zandvoort

Checo was out on track early at the start of Q1 and his first flyer of 1:11.957 netted him P3 behind early leader Lance Stroll of Aston Martin and Williams’ Alex Albon. The Mexican completed a cool down lap before heading back to the pits.

Max, meanwhile, held fire until just over seven minutes into the session. However, when the champion emerged, he quickly vaulted from P19 on the timesheet to third, just 0.018s off leader Lewis Hamilton and behind McLaren’s Lando Norris.

As the champion got into his cool down lap, Checo headed out for his second run. However, on his flying lap the Mexican was forced to slow quickly in Turn 9 when he appeared to be hindered by Hamilton who was on an in-lap.

Max went out for a final run, but with used tyres equipped he found himself sliding around too much and midway through the lap he backed out of the attempt and as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz jumped to P1 and was then displaced by Mercedes’ George Russell, the Dutchman slowly slid down the order. Further back, Checo was on track on another set of Softs and seeking a significant improvement in order to escape the drop zone. The Mexican made the most of the improving track and in the final moments he vaulted to top spot with a lap of 1:11.006, 0.043s ahead of Russell and more than three tenths clear of Sainz.

Qualifying begins...

Checo’s fine final flyer meant that Max dropped to P7 at the end of the session, but the champion eased through to Q2 with minimum fuss. Ruled out at the end of Q1 were VCARB’s Daniel Ricciardo in P16, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, the Kick Sauber cars of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, and Sargeant who failed to make it out on track in Q1 following his FP3 crash.

The Ferrari drivers were first out on track at the start of Q2 and it was Charles Leclerc who set the early pace on 1:11.665, just under two tenths of his team-mate. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri moved to the top of the order with his first flyer of 1:10.505 a second clear of Leclerc but the Australian was edged out of top spot by team-mate Lando Norris’ 1:10.496. And when Russell slotted into third place, Max’s first flyer of 1:10.811 left him in fourth place. Checo, meanwhile, opened his Q2 appearance with a lap of 1:11.100 and that put him in eighth place, 0.037s ahead of Sainz.

Comfortable with his opening run, the top four drivers, including Max, chose to sit out the final runs. Checo, though, needed another improvement and once again the Mexican delivered, booking his Q3 berth with a lap of 1:10.678 and P6.

Max’s confidence in his opening run was well-founded and though he once again slid down the order, the drop halted at P8 and he comfortably made it through to the top-10 shootout.

Saturday complete

The same couldn’t be said for Sainz or Hamilton, with the Ferrari and Mercedes pilots knocked out of qualifying, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda of VCARB was also knocked out and will start the race in 13th, and behind him the Haas pairing of Hülkenberg and Magnussen.

At the start of Q3, it was Norris who seized provisional pole, with the McLaren driver setting a benchmark of 1:10.074, 0.119s clear of Piastri. Max, who hit the kerbs hard enough late in the lap to ask for his floor to be checked on his return to the garage, took third place 0.148s off Norris’ P1 time.

Having been forced to use an extra set of Soft tyres in Q1, thanks to Hamilton getting in the way, Checo had to sit out on the opening runs of Q3 and save his remaining set of tyres for the final push laps of the session.

Max pulled out all the stops on his final lap and after a blistering, purple second sector the Dutchman jumped ahead of Norris, finding eight tenths of a second over his Q2 best to post a time of 1:10.029 that momentarily sent the Zandvoort crowd wild.

Norris responded, however, and after setting a session-best sector 1 time, the McLaren driver posted personal bests across the rest of the lap to quell the orange army’s celebrations and deny Max a ninth pole of the season. The Dutchman will therefore start on the front row tomorrow. Behind Max, Checo also delivered a good single flying lap of Q3, with the Mexican claiming fifth place for tomorrow’s start.

The Top 3 at Quali