ZANDVOORT, Netherlands – Max Verstappen delivered a pole in front of his home crowd on Saturday at Circuit Zandvoort.
Verstappen put his Red Bull entry on the pole for the Dutch Grand Prix with a superb lap in the final round of qualifying, just holding off Lewis Hamilton in the process. His 1:08.885 lap narrowly gave him the pole for Sunday’s race by .038 seconds ahead of Hamilton.
“It feels great to be on pole position and of course it makes it even more satisfying when it’s at one of your home races,” said Verstappen, who was born in Belgium but races under the Dutch flag. “Everyone was going crazy each time I crossed the line and it’s amazing to see people having the time of their lives in the grandstands. I’ve had so much fun already from FP1 driving this track and in qualifying when you’re on low fuel it’s just incredible. Sector two and the banked corners, plus the last corner where you’re flat, it’s a nice sensation and it’s just so enjoyable to drive. It’s an old school track that is flowing and fast like Suzuka where you really feel the grip of a Formula 1 car, it’s challenging and I enjoy tracks like this. Today we worked really well as a Team and took another good step forward with the car compared to yesterday.
“Qualifying was quite tricky with the red flags, you could see there was no room for error which is nice and makes it more exciting, but my lap itself was good. There were two occasions where I lost some time, first with a double upshift coming out of turn three where it is very bumpy, and then my DRS didn’t open coming out of the last corner which we need to look into, but fortunately the lap was enough for pole. Of course at this track it’s important to be starting from out in front because it’s very difficult to overtake here so the start will be key and then we need to look after our tyres and be on alert because new tracks can often bring chaos. I expect Mercedes to be strong, you could see the gap was close today, so tomorrow isn’t as straightforward as it seems.”
Valtteri Bottas qualified third in the second Mercedes, followed by a strong performance by AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly in fourth. Charles Leclerc qualified fifth for Ferrari, followed by Carlos Sainz Jr.,