Feature
What the teams said – Qualifying in the Netherlands
Special Contributor
Becky HartShare
McLaren
McLaren have looked quick all weekend, so it was no surprise to see both drivers make Q3 with ease. They looked to be in a three-way fight for pole with Verstappen, but Piastri couldn’t nail his final flying run when it mattered, small mistakes on the second half of the lap costing him a place on the front row. As for Norris, his final run was as close to perfection as you can get. He grabbed a fourth career pole by a sizeable margin, which is especially impressive at such a short track.
Lando Norris, 1st, 1:09.673
"An impressive Saturday. It’s nice to be back starting the second half of the season with pole position. Qualifying was pretty smooth, with good laps, especially the last one. The conditions today made it a little more challenging and with every lap you had to reassess how much more you could push and where the limits were.
“I felt very comfortable today, the car was strong, and the team have done a great job so far, so a big thank you to them for their hard work. I'm sure Max will put up a good fight at his home race tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to it and will work hard overnight to prepare with the team.”
Oscar Piastri, 3rd, 1:10.172
"The first half of the final lap was pretty solid, and then the second half wasn’t quite what I needed. The car has been very quick all weekend and I’m a little disappointed to not be on the front row. I’ve got a very good race car underneath me though. The pace did look good in the long runs and we’ve been pretty quick the last few weekends so, hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow, get a good start and try to make up a couple of spots.”
Andrea Stella, Team Principal
“A strong Qualifying session at Zandvoort with Lando and Oscar putting together competitive laps in every Quali session. The car has been performing well in the many different conditions we’ve faced this weekend. It’s well-suited to the characteristics of these kinds of tracks, like Barcelona and Hungary, but we also see the upgrades we’ve brought this weekend helped to deliver a strong performance – so a big thank you to everyone at the factory who has contributed to that effort to design, produce and deliver these. We’re now fully focused on preparation for the Dutch Grand Prix."
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Red Bull
Verstappen had conceded that his car was “too slow” after yesterday’s practice, but he managed to find some impressive pace late on in Q3 to really take the fight to McLaren. He improved massively on his second run in Q3 to heap the pressure onto Norris, only to see his rival respond. Nonetheless, second on the grid is no mean feat. Perez had a more difficult session, feeling he was impeded by Hamilton in Q1 and having to use a second set of tyres as a result. With only one run in Q3, he managed to bag a respectable fifth on the grid.
Max Verstappen, 2nd, 1:10.029
“I couldn’t quite fight for pole today but we are doing everything we can to make the car as competitive as possible. I was happy to be on the front row, it is not quite as close as we would have liked but we will see what happens tomorrow. We are looking to optimise the balance of the car, especially as it is very windy on the track, but we will see how the car runs tomorrow and analyse the limited long runs we got yesterday. In the past we have been very strong in the race, which is a positive. It will also depend on the tyre degradation; we will need to see how much it will rain overnight and see how everything goes tomorrow. On pure pace, it will be difficult to beat the McLarens but anything can happen in Formula 1 so we will see. I will try my best tomorrow in front of my home crowd and we will see where we are.”
Sergio Perez, 5th, 1:10.416
“Qualifying was going well, but unfortunately my lap was compromised by Lewis [Hamilton] in Q1 and that harmed the rest of our session, as then we only had one set of new tyres in Q3. It is what it is, but I think we have the pace and are going to be strong tomorrow. We improved the car from some of the issues we had in the practice sessions, which is promising. The conditions have been tricky this weekend, especially the wind today, so it will be about maximising performance from the data we have. Overall I think today with P5 was a solid result, and we can fight from there with the people ahead. The target for tomorrow will be to hopefully make up some places at the start and secure a good result.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal
“Firstly, congratulations to Lando, that was a strong lap from him. It was very tricky for all the drivers in the wind today, you get a snap and then in one corner you look bad and then on the next lap you look ok. Our main focus is on tomorrow and let’s see if that pays off, Max has put himself in a great position in tricky conditions. Checo put in a good performance as well, top five matches his best result in quali here in Zandvoort. He was strong throughout the session, and he even effectively lost a set of tyres in Q1 when he got into a bit of traffic with Lewis, so he had to run another set and therefore couldn’t benefit from that in Q3. I think it is going to be an interesting race, strategy will play a pivotal role, and the weather could play a part too, as it has all weekend. Lando is on the clean side of the grid, there’s a reason why it is the preferred position here but let’s see, we need to get a good start, it is not that long a run into turn one so hopefully we get away well.”
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Mercedes
Mercedes looked to be in the mix with McLaren yesterday, but their pace fell away in qualifying. Hamilton had looked the pick of their drivers, Russell struggling in Q1 and having to use a second set of tyres. But then the shock came, Hamilton unable to extract enough from his final run to even make it to the top 10. Russell did make it through, with fourth the best he could manage on a day where McLaren were just too good. Worse was to come for Hamilton too, as he was handed a three-place grid drop for impeding Perez in Q1, and thus will start even further down the order than 12th.
Lewis Hamilton, 12th, 1:10.948
“Today was frustrating. We had been looking good throughout the weekend and in Q1, I was pleased with the balance of the car. Unfortunately, we struggled more in Q2, and it slipped through our fingers. I couldn’t go any faster than I did on my final lap and that wasn’t enough to get us through. These things happen but ultimately, I didn’t do a good enough job. I will push to get as many points as we can tomorrow and enjoy myself out there.”
George Russell, 4th, 1:10.244
“It was a challenging qualifying session today. In Q1 I was really struggling. In Q2, I had the pace to match the McLarens. In Q3, we slipped back a little and ultimately that left us in P4. I think that was probably the maximum for us today. It was very difficult to get the tyres consistently in the right window. Lewis had great pace in Q1 but suffered from that in Q2. The conditions kept changing too so it was difficult to align everything to get the most out of the car. Finding that sweet spot was definitely not easy. The gap to the front was quite big today but I think we can have a better race tomorrow. We will be looking forward and trying to get on the podium once again.”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“We were hoping for a better Saturday. In all the practice sessions, we had looked like we were close to the front of the field. Unfortunately, in qualifying the car was on a bit of knife edge. It was hard for both drivers to get the most out of it consistently. Lewis was therefore knocked out in Q2, despite showing strong pace in Q1. George likely got the most we could have hoped for today with P4, but we are not pleased with those results. We look ahead to tomorrow now and will be aiming to move forward with both drivers in the race. Our race pace on Friday looked solid, although it will be difficult to compete with the McLarens. They looked very strong in FP2 so our fight will likely be to get on the podium.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“Our performance today was disappointing, and we had certainly hoped for more. Both drivers looked more competitive at times in the session than the results showed. Lewis was strong in Q1 and George in Q2, but we failed to get it together when it mattered. The car hasn’t felt as good for either driver today. We were suffering from understeer yesterday but today we were struggling for rear grip. Our attention now turns to tomorrow’s race. Our long run pace was reasonable yesterday and hopefully that will remain. If it does, we will be looking to move forwards with both drivers. The McLarens looked very strong on Friday so we may be looking at keeping George in the fight for the lower reaches of the podium, rather than victory. With Lewis, we will aim to recover well and score as many points as we can.”
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Ferrari
Sainz was up against it today, having missed so much running in the dry on Friday. He made it out of Q1 despite some worrying moments, but he couldn’t do the same in Q2 – missing out by less than a tenth. That left Leclerc as the only Ferrari in the top 10, but the Monegasque couldn’t get in the mix near the front. They’ll be hoping their race pace can move them forward come tomorrow.
Charles Leclerc, 6th, 1:10.582
"We knew it would be a tough one today and we maximized our qualifying with P6, but that doesn’t satisfy us. We are quite a bit off the pace of our competitors and we are working night and day as a team to close that gap. I am sure the effort will pay off soon.
"The target for me tomorrow will be to keep our position and bring as many points home as possible."
Carlos Sainz, 11th, 1:10.914
"I’m obviously not happy with how things are going this weekend. Before this session I’d hardly done any laps with the slick tyre so it was always going to be very difficult to do a perfect qualifying around this tricky track. Then, in Q2, traffic around the high speed section didn’t help either and missing Q3 by less than a tenth hurts.
"In general, we are struggling with the car this weekend, but points are given out tomorrow and I’ll try to do my best to recover."
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
"We were expecting a tough weekend here in Zandvoort. Last year it was one of our worst races, mainly because of the configuration of the track and we have not brought any upgrades this weekend. In the end, we have secured a respectable position on the grid with Charles and we will have our chance to fight for good points tomorrow, although a podium finish will be difficult unless something happens in front. But it’s important to score as many points as possible, because we have seen so far this season that teams can go up and down and when you have a difficult weekend like we are having here, we must still try to get the best result we can. There will be tracks that suit us better in the remaining races and we will also make progress with the car soon.
"With Carlos, it’s been a bit more difficult, as he went into quali having been unable to do any laps on the Soft tyre yesterday and when the gaps are so small, this is the result and he missed out on Q3 by less than a tenth. I expect Carlos to get back on the pace quite early in the race tomorrow. Tonight we will have a good look at what we can do to help him in terms of strategy and tyres."
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Aston Martin
Aston Martin managed to get both cars into the top 10 shootout, no mean feat with the margins so small. With only one set of tyres to play with, both drivers came out midway between the first and second runs, completing just the one flying lap well before the track was at its best. As such, seventh and ninth is a decent effort for the team, with Alonso pipping his team mate.
Fernando Alonso, 7th, 1:10.633
“I am happy with my Qualifying today and both cars in Q3 is a positive result for us. It felt like a lottery sometimes out on track depending on how gusty it was, particularly in Turns 9 and 10. I wasn't too comfortable in Q1 and Q2, but in the end I was happy with my lap in Q3. I felt like it was the maximum we could achieve today. Tomorrow the weather looks clear, so we will need to execute a good race and battle hard to keep some fast cars behind us.”
Lance Stroll, 9th, 1:10.857
“I had a really strong Q2, putting in a purple first sector and finishing that session in P4. I couldn't quite replicate that during my one push lap in Q3 though. I was pushing hard but got a bit out of shape. Still, two cars in Q3 is a good result for the team. The changes we made ahead of Qualifying have been positive and we managed the session well. We have some faster cars behind us tomorrow, but it can be tough to overtake here so we should be able to fight for some good points from P9.”
Mike Krack, Team Principal
“It's great to be back on track here in Zandvoort as we start the second half of the 2024 F1 season. Variable conditions have kept us on our toes so far this weekend at this coastal location. We've put together a positive qualifying session together this afternoon in a very close competition. Both Lance and Fernando drove really well to get both cars through into Q3. It is always our target to get both cars starting in the Top 10 and we've achieved that today. Lance in particular had a monster lap in Q2 to secure the fourth fastest time. It will be a long race tomorrow but from P7 and P9 we can race to bring home a strong points finish in front of this wonderful crowd and electric atmosphere.”
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Williams
What a day of contrasts for Williams. They had to watch Sargeant’s heart-in-mouth crash in FP3, the American thankfully walking away from a very big impact. But as well as the damage, his car caught fire and that left the team with too big a repair job to get Sargeant out for qualifying. It also means most of their sizeable upgrade package is broken beyond repair, but at least they can gather data on that from Albon’s car. Albon gave them plenty of laps to gather said data, as he made it all the way to Q3 to record his best qualifying of the season. Unfortunately for him, there was more bad news to come when he was later disqualified from qualifying for a technical infringement.
MUST-SEE: Massive crash for Sargeant in Zandvoort FP3 sees his upgraded Williams catch fire
Alex Albon, 8th, 1:10.653
"I’m really happy with P8 and that our upgrades have helped us secure this position. It’s been very windy and gusty out there and it seems like if you were 10 seconds behind another car, they could have a completely different wind to you and it was halves of seconds that were in the wind, so it felt a little like the lottery. We’ve made a big step with the weight as well as the aero upgrade and it’s not the complete package either with more to come soon, so it’s all looking positive. The car felt strong and got better on each lap, so it’s great to get this result in these conditions today and to see the upgrades working well. We can all be happy, so a big thank you to the team for working hard to have the updates ready. We’ll be in the mix tomorrow, I’m feeling confident."
Logan Sargeant, 20th, No time set
"It was a small mistake with a big consequence, just touching the grass and that was it. Obviously, a big hit but I’m ok. There’s a lot to fix on the car so I feel for everyone working on it tonight to get it ready for tomorrow. All we can do is regroup, go again and try and have a good race."
Sven Smeets, Sporting Director
"A day of mixed emotions. After Logan crashed in FP3 the team gave it their best to get the car ready for Qualifying, but unfortunately there was simply too much to do, so Logan will have to start from P20.
"On the other hand, Alex had a great afternoon with the car performing well and solid runs in Q1 and Q2 that got him into Q3. As we only had one set of new tyres left, we opted for one run at the end and qualified in P8. He is in a great position tomorrow to score points, but it will be a hard fight as it is so tight in the midfield. The weather should be stable and dry tomorrow which will hopefully make it a great race for the fans."
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Alpine
It was a mixed bag for Alpine on Saturday. Gasly topped FP3 – albeit in a very unrepresentative session thanks to the red flags. But the Frenchman carried that confidence into qualifying and made it all the way to the top 10. Ocon by contrast exited in Q1, complaining heavily about his car but without going into any specifics as to why it was so bad to drive on what proved a difficult day for many.
Esteban Ocon, 17th, 1:11.995
“It has been a disappointing weekend so far. I have been struggling with the car set-up here, no matter what the conditions were and just had very poor grip. So unfortunately, I was just not able to put a quick enough lap together today. We need to ensure we put ourselves in a solid position and that we can keep the positive momentum going from before the summer break. We will be in a difficult position on the grid tomorrow to get to where we want to be, considering I will start from P17 and the nature of the track here in Zandvoort. Hopefully, we can extract some useful data from the running today, learn from it and give it our all tomorrow where we aim to be more competitive.”
Pierre Gasly, 10th, 1:10.977
“I’m very pleased with today’s effort. Before Qualifying, it was clear that we would have a challenge on our hands to progress through Q1 and into Q2, especially after a tough Friday Practice. In the end, we reached Q3 so I’m happy with that. We almost extracted the maximum from the car. We missed a little bit of lap time in Q3 but, even so, we’re inside the top 10 and we have put ourselves in a good position to fight for points in the race. We know we have a battle tomorrow with Lewis [Hamilton] and Carlos [Sainz] starting behind us. It’s going to be a tough race but we will be ready for it. We just need to try and hang onto some of the cars starting ahead of us. If we can score points that will be great and that is the aim.”
Julian Rouse, Sporting Director
“We have made a good step forward since yesterday’s Practice. We’ve built positive momentum through the weekend where, in the end, we have one car reach Q3 and in contention to score points in the race. Our competitiveness is in line with previous races where we brought upgrades to the car, and we must keep learning and keep developing in order to continue progress. While we’ve seen some interesting conditions over the past few days here in Zandvoort, tomorrow’s weather looks more stable. We will assess our options on strategy in order to give ourselves the best chance to score points. Our eyes are firmly forwards and racing our closest rivals.”
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RB
RB haven’t looked particularly quick here all weekend, so it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Ricciardo exit at the first time of asking. Tsunoda at least saved the team’s blushes by making Q2, but he could go no further. Points might be a tough ask on Sunday, but at least their main championship rivals Haas didn’t manage to get a car into the top 10 either.
Daniel Ricciardo, 16th, 1:11.943
“It was definitely tricky out there in a windy day and with generally tough conditions. It was really hard to put a clean lap together in qualifying, and I just felt that I was probably struggling a little bit more than maybe some others. We found things in the setup last night that were encouraging coming into today, but unfortunately, we were not quick enough and just very much on a knife edge. I was sliding with the rear out of some turns so I had to take a bit of margin, but in doing that we were slow because I couldn’t push as much as I would have liked to, and that is where I felt I couldn’t get the lap out of it. Being out in Q1 doesn’t help ahead of tomorrow as it’s a narrow circuit and not one of those notorious for easily overtaking, but let’s see what happens.”
Yuki Tsunoda, 13th, 1:10.955
“I’m definitely disappointed, it feels like we stepped down quite a lot from FP2. I was happy with my lap, but for whatever reason we lacked quite a lot of pace compared to what we had. I thought we’d go through quite easily, but even in Q1 we struggled quite a lot, and it was pretty tight to get P10, so we’ll have to revise what happened. It’s not too bad of a place to start to score points, the last two days has been very inconsistent weather and we saw from last year in the race anything can happen, so I’ll try my best.”
Jody Egginton, Technical Director
“The first qualifying runs for both drivers fell below our expectations in terms of lap times, but the second ones were better. With some small changes to aero balance and tools settings, we made a step forward with the balance of Yuki’s car for Q2, enabling him to extract more from the tyres, but even with this step and the final lap looking very strong, we were missing just over 0.1sec in the final corners. It was an incredibly packed Q2 session, of course we will review if another step in the direction taken for Q2 could have helped as every small detail matters when qualifying lap times are so close. Looking ahead to tomorrow, FP2 long run pace was reasonable, so if we can get our cars moving forwards early towards the ones in front of us, we should be able to find ourselves at the front of the midfield and take any opportunities that present themselves.”
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Haas
Hulkenberg’s miserable weekend continued in FP3 when he managed to hit the barriers for the second time, breaking his front wing in the process. Whatever was going on with his brakes at least seemed solved by the time the dry qualifying session rolled around, and he wound up the lead Haas car. There wasn’t much in it though, just 0.080s separating the German and Magnussen, with Haas lacking the pace to challenge for the top 10.
Nico Hulkenberg, 14th, 1:11.215
“It was tough in quali and the wind really picked-up again in the afternoon, but it was the first clean run I’d had this weekend. Every other session I’ve had has been interrupted, and it’s been a very difficult build-up to qualifying. Now at least, I’ve produced good clean laps and that was actually pretty decent. I’m not too unhappy with how qualifying went but obviously you always have the feeling that because we missed so much yesterday, we’re a step behind chasing. Tomorrow’s going to be challenging as I didn’t have much practice, so I’ll just have to see how the car feels, react correctly, and make the most of it.”
Kevin Magnussen, 15th, 1:11.295
“I’m slightly disappointed, I think we had a feeling we’d be slightly better. We fell at the rear of that little group between P10 and P15 unfortunately, so it’s still possible to do something tomorrow but it will require good pace, but hopefully we’ll have that. It’s so close, hopefully things swing our way and we’ll get an opportunity. P15 makes it harder tomorrow, but there’s still points to play for.”
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal
“The qualifying result was obviously very disappointing. Kevin had reasonably good preparation throughout the practice sessions and his first Q2 run was good, but on his final run he couldn’t improve, so that was very disappointing. Nico was on the backfoot because he went off several times during practice, so we ran Nico on three new sets of tyres in Q1 to get him started. I feel like he was so much on the backfoot and with everyone in qualifying being so tight, if you’re that far behind you have no chance. Comparing laps, I think the cut-off around Q3 is where we should be, so I don’t think we’ve maximised our performance. It’s tricky for the race as it’s difficult to overtake here, but we’ll work overnight to see what we can do tomorrow.”
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Kick Sauber
Kick Sauber lacked pure pace in Zandvoort, with both their drivers exiting in Q1. They propped up the field with Sargeant not taking part, Bottas winding up a tenth ahead of his team mate. Neither driver has a contract secured for next season, but this isn’t the kind of result that could turn heads. They will hope for better in the race tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas, 18th, 1:12.168
“When you look at the results from today’s qualifying, it’s clear that it’s not where we want to be – we want to keep making progress: this weekend, however, has proved tricky for us so far and today was no exception. This morning, the car had felt better in less breezy conditions, but as soon as the wind picked up, it amplified our weaknesses and inconsistencies, and we struggled with corner balance. Our car can be quite sensitive but, despite some traffic at the end of the lap, I feel we got out all we could from it. Tomorrow will not be easy, but this sport always throws you a chance, so we won’t give up and we will go in fighting. We know it will be hard to climb to the points, especially with overtaking being difficult, but this has to be our objective.”
Zhou Guanyu, 19th, 1:13.261
“Today was quite frustrating, with a tricky qualifying session. So far this weekend, the car has been feeling good and it felt like things were coming together for me. We noticed a lack of performance in high fuel runs yesterday, so we made some setup changes to address that; however, it looks like the direction we took resulted in a slower single-lap pace – something we definitely need to investigate. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to push the car as much as I wanted and started struggling with my tyres after turn three on each lap: we’ll need to keep analysing and addressing our issues to be better prepared for tomorrow. While this hasn’t been our track in the past as a team, we’ll keep working hard to get the most out of tomorrow’s race.”
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative
“We experienced a day in which conditions changed significantly between FP3 and qualifying. FP3 was a session with little on-track action, as we spent most of the time in the garage following the red flag before making a few laps on Intermediate tyres under wet conditions. On that track, the car balance felt quite ok; however, once it had fully dried for qualifying, we weren’t able to find a good balance throughout the lap. Both Valtteri and Zhou struggled, especially in sectors two and three, and we weren’t able to extract the needed performance from our car. We need to analyse why we weren’t able to keep up with track evolution from FP3 and why we struggled so much with corner balance in sectors two and three.
“There is a lot of work to do and, unfortunately, we have to start in a similar position to where we were in the last two races. We must understand, all together as a team, how to find the optimal balance on track configurations that feature a mix of low- and medium-speed corners, as well as why we’re seeing inconsistent performance across different conditions. Tomorrow’s starting positions are definitely difficult, but we’ll do everything to try and grab any opportunity that may arise. It’s not the end of the weekend – but a difficult day, and we’re here together to overcome the situation for tomorrow.”
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Pirelli
Mario Isola, Motorsport Director
“It all looked very closely matched during two free practice sessions and the first two parts of qualifying, but then in Q3, Norris made a step forward which put pole out of reach of his competitors, with a fantastic lap: 356 thousandths is a very significant advantage on a track that is only a little over four kilometres in length!
“Clearly, because of the bad weather and various interruptions, preparation for teams and drivers was far from optimal for the grid-deciding session. In those 60 minutes, it was clear the Soft offered peak performance on the first flying lap and so, the use of a new set saw a significant improvement in lap time, probably even superior to that offered by the evolution of the track conditions. “As for possible scenarios for tomorrow’s race, the relatively little data gathered over three hours of free practice still confirmed the results of simulations prior to the event. On paper, the one-stop is quickest, with the C3/C1 combination preferable to a C2/C3: in the first case the pit stop window can be between laps 24 and 30, while for the second it should open four laps later and close on lap 34.”
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