We wonder what could stop the steamroller Max Verstappen who won an 8th pole this season – the third in a row on this circuit of Zandvoort. Once again with manner, since he relegates his runner-up Lando Norris to more than half a second (+0”537) and the Briton George Russell to more than 7 tenths. As for Perez, his teammate, he humiliates him once again by sticking to him for more than a second. The Mexican is only 7th, which will not help save his seat in 2024.
Albon confirms its high odds
In terms of nice surprises, hats off to Williams who placed his two cars in Q3! Alex Albon, very prominent and potentially courted by big teams, signed the feat of finishing 4th, ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, unhappy on the last red flag which aborted his best lap, and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard complains of an “undriveable” Ferrari and has once again embarrassed a driver, this time Oscar Piastri. Logan Sargeant confirmed his progress by also going through Q3, but he crashed on his first flying lap when he had put on the soft tires on a track that had just dried out. The Williams driver hit hard at turn 2 (turns 2 and 3 were the source of many incidents this weekend) and damaged his car. He will start from 10th position… if Williams does not have to break Parc Fermé to repair!
Leclerc still pays a wall
On the side of disappointments, let’s first note Charles Leclerc, 9th, who left the track on his second flying lap, at turn 9, following a big understeer. The Monegasque then gave us a “Fernando” while remaining the rest of the session near the track, seated on a foldable seat. In Q1, he had clashed with his track engineer over traffic management. Vasseur was quite pungent towards him after the session. Water in the gas between Leclerc and the Scuderia? The contract extension after 2024 is a long time coming…
Hamilton and Alpine inside
The big surprise and disappointment is the elimination of Lewis Hamilton in Q2. The Briton missed qualifying for the top 10 by just 84 thousandths. Alpine does not raise the bar, with Gasly 12th and Ocon who remained nailed in Q1 … the optimistic declarations and the method cast on the objective of 4th place to catch up with McLaren crashing on reality, the A523 is missed or in in any case too delicate to perform…
For his first qualification in Formula 1, Liam Lawson, who replaced the injured Daniel Ricciardo at short notice, was unsurprisingly eliminated in Q1 and will start from 20th position on Sunday. The New Zealander had a difficult baptism of fire in wet conditions and with a very short running time.
