Key events
Lando Norris has been chatting to Sky Sports about how on earth he can get past Piastri this afternoon:
“It’s not the easiest track to overtake on but it’s also not impossible, but when you’re so closely matched with your teammate it can also make things trickier.
“We will see and it’s a little bit more limiting to options I could have because it is my teammate, but not impossible. I will see what I can come up with.”
Dutch Grand Prix recent winners:
2024 – Lando Norris (McLaren)
2023 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
2022 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
2021 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Can Verstappen take another victory in his home race, from third place on the grid? It’d be some effort to usurp the McLarens.
Sky Sports are showing a montage of all the great intra-team title battles over the years, given the rivalry between Piastri and Norris right now. From Ayrton Senna v Alain Prost, to Damon Hill v Jacques Villeneuve, to Lewis Hamilton v Fernando Alonso – there have been some crackers down the decades.
Remember Piastri currently holds a nine-point lead over his McLaren teammate going into today’s race. McLaren are home and hosed in the constructors’ championship, leading Ferrari by a whopping 299 points.
Right, around 45 minutes until lights out at Zandvoort.
Lots of last-minute checks and adjustments are going on in the garages, while the grid is inevitably filling up with relevant (and some irrelevant) people.
Our man Giles Richards sat down for a big chinwag with the World Championship leader Oscar Piastri in the Netherlands earlier this weekend.
“I have emotions, I still feel everything that everyone else feels. It’s just that, being blunt, I think a lot of emotions are not that helpful.”
Read the full interview here:
Qualifying standings
Piastri
Norris
Verstappen
Hadjar
Russell
Leclerc
Hamilton
Lawson
Sainz
Alonso
Antonelli
Tsunoda
Bortoleto
Gasly
Albon
Colapinto
Hulkenberg
Ocon
Stroll
With Haas fitting new components to Ollie Bearman’s car, he will start in the pit lane.
Preamble
As Jeremy Corbyn once gleefully said, we’re back and we’re ready to do it all over again. After a near-month-long summer break, a Formula One grand prix is finally back on our screens, with Oscar Piastri on pole for this Dutch GP.
That Piastri qualified just 0.012 seconds ahead of his McLaren teammate Lando Norris was a sore point for the British driver as he spoke to the media yesterday. On a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult – virtually impossible if you believe Norris – he admitted he’d need a spot of magic to overcome Piastri this afternoon.
“It’s going to take some magic, some good strategy or incredible tyre saving or something,” Norris said on how he can win at Zandvoort. On not nabbing pole position, he said: “Just a bummer … but not a lot I can do now. My lap was still pretty good, 0.01secs is such a small margin. It is frustrating mainly because it is a track that is pretty much impossible to overtake on, so a lot of my chances are now gone.”
So will it be a procession for Piastri or can Norris nick something in the Netherlands? We get under way at 2pm (BST), 3pm local time.
