\u201cOnly my Turn 1 was pretty shocking,\u201d said Norris later.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] was probably my worst Turn 1 of the weekend. Otherwise, it wasn\u2019t a lap that felt mega. It was just one where I just had to commit through everything because I knew how close it was going to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw how close it was, but it\u2019s one where I just kind of committed a lot more through moments and almost made more mistakes. But because I committed a lot more through some of these mistakes, I kind of seemed to gain more than I seemed to lose at times.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Kimi Antonelli briefly occupied pole position<\/p>\n
Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli briefly occupied provisional pole, but felt he paid the price for not attacking Tarzan hard enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last lap I did a mistake in Sector 1,\u201d he said. \u201cTook it a bit too easy seeing the rain on the visor and just, yeah, it was a really poor Sector 1. And a shame because I think we had a shot for pole.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rain factor<\/p>\n
The imminent arrival of rain, expected in the final minutes of Q3, was a complicating factor given the peculiar circumstances of a weekend where heavy showers between F1 track sessions have, in effect, reset the surface. Track evolution had therefore been pronounced in sprint qualifying and it continued to be obvious on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
That added to the uncertainties of Q3, where there was an obvious incentive to get a good lap on the board in the first run in case the track became too slippery once the rain made itself felt. But if it was just a few drops, as so often this weekend, it might have little or no effect on the ramp-up of the circuit.<\/p>\n
Norris was on top after the first runs with a 1m11.344s, 0.151s ahead of sprint race winner Russell, with Antonelli 0.331s adrift in fifth \u2013 mere thousandths quicker than Max Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s Red Bull. The second runs began slightly earlier than usual, mindful of the prognostication that rain was due to hit with five minutes to go. Antonelli was among the first to exit with six and a half minutes left on the clock, followed by Norris and Russell, who dodged past the second McLaren<\/a> of Oscar Piastri<\/a> at the pit exit to better his chances of an unimpeded run.<\/p>\n Particularly when the track temperatures have dipped, the frontrunners have found it more optimal to have a prep lap on top of the out lap before embarking on the push lap. That helps to bring the tyres on both sides of the car into the right temperature window, not just those on the more heavily stressed left side. Even then it could be hairy into Tarzan, the first corner.<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton opted for a prep lap<\/p>\n Photo by: Simon Galloway \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cDo an out-lap and a prep lap, and the tyres are still not ready for Turn 1,\u201d said Lewis Hamilton<\/a>. \u201cIt’s just nuts \u2013 you just don’t have the confidence to attack Turn 1.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time Antonelli was rounding the banked final corner at the end of his out-lap, a ripple was running through the crowd as those not under cover began donning their ponchos. No time for a build lap: it was this or not at all.<\/p>\n Antonelli duly tripped the timing beam at 1m11.296s to set provisional pole. In most Q3s, the final run would be set after the clock had run down but here there was just shy of four minutes to go. Mere seconds later, Norris flashed across the line in 1m11.163s \u2013 robbing Antonelli of pole by 0.133s. Russell then bumped his Mercedes team-mate down to P3 with a 1m11.265s.<\/p>\n Not as close as the margins in sprint qualifying but still intriguing. Russell had gone fastest of all in sector one, set a personal best in the second sector, but then it melted away at the end of the lap. Norris set personal bests in the first and third sectors, but it was in the middle portion of the lap where he made his mark.<\/p>\n Ferrari<\/a> took a risk committing Hamilton and Charles Leclerc<\/a> to prep laps, which meant they started their push laps later \u2013 if the spits of rain had turned into a full-on shower, as it had just after the chequered flag in the sprint race, they might not have improved. As it happened, the rain petered out and both Ferraris banked faster times, just not enough to displace the McLarens and Mercedes ahead.<\/p>\n Where Antonelli lost out The data and onboard footage clearly illustrates what went wrong for\u00a0Antonelli and Norris at Turn 1. Though Antonelli felt that he didn\u2019t try hard enough, actually he (blue telemetry trace) carried more speed towards the apex than Norris (orange trace). But Russell (white trace) blended out of the throttle later and was able to carry more speed than both.<\/p>\n While Norris was last off the throttle and later on the brakes, he was already losing speed compared with both Mercedes on the approach to the corner at full throttle. A small dip in the revs at this point suggests a mild amount of clipping. Norris took a much wider line and had to make two sharp steering corrections to brush away some oversteer, but his apex and exit speeds were slightly higher than Antonelli, who hugged the apex much more tightly.<\/p>\n Antonelli got off the brakes earlier than both, before the apex, suggesting he had realised his mistake at this point. The net effect of all this was for him to be over two tenths down on his team-mate before his lap had properly got going. Russell also carried more speed into Turn 2, the cambered bend on the approach to the banked Hugenholtzbocht (Turn 3, or \u201cHugenwoofwoof as the Russell and Norris called it while rolling their tongues around the Dutch argot in the pre-event press conference three years ago). Antonelli attacked that harder but rode up onto the slippery Aramco branding on that corner\u2019s periphery, forcing him to feather the throttle.<\/p>\n Norris was neater through this section and that enabled him to pick up the throttle earlier, trimming some of the gap to Russell and building some margin to Antonelli<\/p>\n Norris overturned Russell in sector two While\u00a0Antonelli and Norris were both more cautious through Scheivlak, the plunging, blind-entry right-hander so notorious it has its own YouTube channel devoted to track day fails, Russell\u2019s aggression at the apex forced him into a steering correction that sapped momentum and speed, enabling Norris to close in again.<\/p>\n Carrying more speed through the tight Turn 9 \u2013 where again Russell was more aggressive and had to correct \u2013 tipped the laptime balance in Norris\u2019s favour but both Mercedes came back at him on the following straight.<\/p>\n Mercedes deployment couldn\u2019t make the difference<\/p>\n In the short straightline mode zone between Turn 10 and the chicane at Turn 11, again there was an intriguing difference in electrical deployment as Norris\u2019 McLaren began clipping at the end of the straight, costing him around 10km\/h and enabling both Mercedes to invert the laptime delta at the entrance to the chicane.<\/p>\n But, again, Russell\u2019s aggression didn\u2019t quite pay off and in trying to carry more speed through the second apex, he was forced into more steering corrections and a later pick-up of the throttle. Norris then got to full throttle earlier than both Mercedes and it\u2019s here \u2013 likely as a consequence of having more electrical energy available because of the different approach to the chicane \u2013 that he was able to invert the delta again in his favour on the short dash towards Turns 13 and 14.<\/p>\n If Norris seemed slightly downcast for one who has claimed pole position, it was perhaps because his McLaren had laboured with tyre degradation during the earlier sprint race. In recent years McLaren chassis have generally been kinder to their tyres in race trim but less effective at switching them on in qualifying. For this year\u2019s car the team has endeavoured to nudge the characteristics slightly towards better quali performance, but in some instances this has made race pace challenging.<\/p>\n \u201cThe positive is that we confirmed the car performs very well in qualifying trim,\u201d said team principal Andrea Stella.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, pole position in Hungary, pole position here in Zandvoort, so definitely in these high downforce circuits it looks like our upgrades are working well and the car can be the best car, even if the gaps are very, very small. At the same time, we saw in the sprint race that not necessarily we were the best car in terms of consistency and tyre degradation.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the main focus now shifts on to making sure that we can do a bit better using our tyres than what we have done in the sprint race.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n We want to hear from you!<\/p>\n Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.<\/p>\n![\"Lewis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787473333_159_lewis-hamilton-ferrari.jpg\")
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