Max Verstappen did what Max Verstappen does: take pole by an almost embarrassing margin.
The Dutchman looked at home at home, storming to top spot by more than half a second, one of the year’s largest margins, and put himself in the box seat to take a record-equalling ninth consecutive victory.
The gap to Lando Norris behind, the Briton picking up another front-row start for McLaren, was large but to be expected. Not only is the Red Bull Racing car the best in the field and ideally suited to this track, but Verstappen excels in these conditions.
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The embarrassing margin was to teammate Sergio Pérez, who was thumped by 1.3 seconds and six places on the grid.
Pérez has struggled all season with mixed weather, and it said it all that team boss Christian Horner said he’d actually expected the Mexican to be starting further back despite the hefty car advantage.
You could argue that in previous rounds Pérez has been eliminated in Q3 or Q2 when conditions haven’t suited him and that seventh on the grid is an improvement.
But it would be damning with faint praise on a weekend a former Red Bull protégé will start on the front row in a markedly slower car — and at a moment the Red Bull driver program has got another rookie onto the grid as the pipeline threatens to start churning.
Ricciardo BREAKS HAND in crash at P2 | 01:16
McLAREN’S REVIVAL CONTINUES APACE
Another weekend, another impressive round for the new McLaren.
Given the upgraded MCL60’s strong form at the Hungaroring two rounds before the break, the similar but faster Zandvoort — with yet more new parts applied — was always likely to be a productive circuit for the papaya team.
Norris put that promise into practice with second on the grid, having been on provisional pole until the final laps of the session.
For the first part of those final laps it looked like the Briton might pinch top spot from the crowd favourite.
He’d put himself 0.18 seconds up out of the first corner and set the fastest first sector of any driver in qualifying. Verstappen, having failed to get in a representative time due to previous red flags, looked genuinely on the ropes.
But momentum swung massively his way in the final two sectors. Norris admitted to putting in a poor last split, but really it was indicative of the way the RB19 works. It warms up its front tyres more slowly than most other cars — it’s why its race pace is so good — and it took until partway through the lap to really fire up the rubber.
The margin ended up a representative 0.537 seconds.
Oscar Piastri had been provisionally second but failed to defend the place thanks largely to a slow first sector. Mistakes in the first and second corners left him half a second down on Norris, and a slower approach to the final turn left him 0.834 seconds off his teammate. Around the rest of the lap he was on par with the sister car.
McLaren’s race pace in the dry on Friday looked good enough for a podium tilt. Certainly Norris will be aiming for as much. Piastri’s race will hinge largely on his start. Getting past Sergio Pérez would be a big boost.
Piastri opens up on F1 learning curve | 00:56
WILLIAMS AIMS FOR BIG POINTS
It’s not unusual to see Williams and Alex Albon in particular pinch a big qualifying or race result, but they invariably come at tracks that reward straight-line speed and minimise the car’s lack of downforce.
Zandvoort is not one of those circuits. In terms of downforce demands, it’s among the most extreme, up there with Monaco and Hungary. And yet Albon qualified a sensational fourth behind only a Red Bull Racing, a McLaren and a Mercedes.
It is a remarkable result.
The window of opportunity opened when the heavens did likewise, and Williams seized its chance.
We often say that wet weather is a great leveller because it shifts the balance of performance away from the car and towards the driver. Williams worked hard in the wet FP3 to ensure its car was set up to give its drivers maximum confidence to push hard in the mixed conditions, knowing there was more time to be gained there than by simply boosting the downforce figures.
The conditions that rolled around for qualifying were probably ideal in those circumstances. Even when the track was dry enough for slicks, parts of it were still clearly very greasy, and it was never dry enough for any meaningful rubber to be laid into the tarmac.
Albon revelled in the sketchiness, leaning harder on his car than other drivers were able to manage to extract a time fast enough for the second row.
Yes, underperformance on the parts of the Ferrari and Aston Martin drivers played a role in elevating the Thai driver, as did the absence of Lewis Hamilton.
But the Ferrari teammates in particular are a lesson in what happens when drivers lack confidence in faster machinery.
Even teammate Logan Sargeant was competitive, making the top 10 for the first time in his career — though he crashed only a few minutes into Q3, having slid beyond the critical dry line.
Albon’s lofty position sets up an interesting race for points. Dry practice data suggested his car has poor race pace, but it’s very difficult to overtake around this circuit. He’s unlikely to hold onto fourth, but a strong defensive drive — and he’s got form with them — could secure him good points.
He’ll be a major factor in the shape of the top 10 come Sunday night.
LAWSON GETS HIS CHANCE
If you were choosing your moment to make a mid-season F1 debut, you couldn’t have found a worse opportunity than a wet Saturday at Zandvoort.
This is one of the calendar’s more challenging circuits. It’s a bulling of a track packed with undulation and bumps and banking and leaves no margin for error. In the wet, as so many drivers discovered, it’s treacherous.
This was the mission set for New Zealander Liam Lawson, who was suddenly thrown his maiden grand prix in one of the sport’s slowest cars after Daniel Ricciardo withdrew from the weekend with a broken left hand.
The Kiwi’s job was made even more difficult by the two red flags — he caused the third with a harmless spin — that curtailed running in his only practice session, more than half of which was spent on the wet tyre rather than the intermediates he’d use in qualifying. He accumulated a session-high 26 laps, but it was still short of the 30-plus achieved by some drivers in the dry Friday sessions.
But Lawson had to seize the opportunity, and while little could have been expected of him, he ticked the box of bringing the car home cleanly — more than can be said of the higher profile Charles Leclerc and Logan Sargeant — and absorbed a great deal of knowledge ahead of a potentially damp Sunday, even if he was an unsurprising last.
“Firstly, I feel for Daniel in this situation,” Lawson said. “I hope he recovers quickly.
“Today has been very hectic, with very tricky conditions. It was my first time driving on the intermediate tyres during the first session, and it was different to what I expected, but I felt like I was getting somewhere and learning how the tyres behaved.
“During qualifying I was feeling comfortable and like I was gaining a lot.
“Then it rained again and I expected the grip to drop, but I was surprised by how high it stayed, so for sure I didn’t maximise everything. I feel comfortable in the car, but with these conditions it’s tricky to learn this track in the car.”
He now faces the prospect of a grand prix distance without having completed any long running, never mind in the dry on slick tyres. It’s a massive step into the unknown.
“If it’s dry tomorrow, I’m going to be learning many new things,” he said. “I’ll just learn as much as possible and hang on.”
While the pressure is never truly off in Formula 1, a clean Sunday will be his key performance indicator ahead of what will almost certainly be a full weekend in the car next week in Monza.
With a potential full-time AlphaTauri drive on the cards next year, it’ll be in Italy — and perhaps a couple of races after that — that he’ll be hoping to make a big impression with his rare live chance to show what he’s got.
The hand breakage couldn’t have come at a worse time for Daniel Ricciardo and his quest to build momentum for his comeback, but Lawson will undoubtedly be thinking that it was exactly this sort of happenstance that got Nyck de Vries a contract.
It might just be the chance he needs to finally break into the sport.