Verstappen Takes Home Race Pole At Zandvoort
Calum Gill 15:42 04/09/2021
Max Verstappen will start the Dutch Grand Prix from pole position after narrowly edging out title rival Lewis Hamilton for top spot on the grid at Zandvoort.
The Red Bull driver had appeared in control throughout qualifying but Hamilton improved on his final lap to miss out by the narrowest of margins at 0.038 seconds. The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas was third, just under three tenths back from Hamilton, ahead of Pierre Gasly's AlphaTauri and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Antonio Giovinazzi put in an astounding lap to match his career best qualifying result in seventh for the Alfa-Romeo team, ahead of the two Alpine cars, with Fernando Alonso being beaten in qualifying by Esteban Ocon. Daniel Ricciardo - the sole McLaren driver in the final qualifying session - rounded out the order of those in Q3.
Verstappen set the standard on the first lap of final qualifying when he beat Bottas by 0.299 seconds, a significant margin around one of the shortest laps on the calendar. But Hamilton - who managed only one lap in the second practice session on Friday, reducing his time to set-up the car - pulled it out with a trademark lap at the end. Verstappen improved - as he needed to, because Hamilton exactly matched the Dutchman's lap from his first run. Verstappen said: "It is of course the best position. We know passing is difficult, a lot of laps around here, the tyres are struggling around the high speed corners but I hope we can finish it off tomorrow."
Hamilton was booed by the capacity 80,000 crowd as he did his interview immediately after the session, but saluted the enthusiasm of the local fans. He said: "So close. I want to say a big thank you to all the orange fans here, the Dutch fans. What an amazing venue and track. I really love coming to this country. Max did an amazing lap and I was so close to catching him. With yesterday's session missed, it made it difficult, but I did my best. It's a difficult circuit to overtake (on). But what a place to be racing. We haven't seen a crowd like this in a while, it is great to see so many people here and I hope we can put on a great race. It is very tough circuit, which is what makes it so fantastic to drive."
The rest of the grid
George Russell placed 11th for Williams despite having an off at the penultimate corner, that prematurely ended his session. All of the Q2 runners in the drop zone after the banker laps were compromised by a red flag thrown due to Russell's teammate Nicholas Latifi having a hefty impact at the Masterbocht. This saw early exits for Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, the other McLaren of Lando Norris, Latifi and AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda. Sergio Perez failed to get out of Q1 after being unable to set a final flying lap due to the Red Bull driver not beating the chequered flag. Sebastian Vettel also suffered issues in Q1 after being held up by the two Haas cars as he rounded the penultimate turn. He will start 17th. Robert Kubica - standing in for the ill Kimi Raikkonen - beat the two Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin to qualify 18th.
