Netherlands GP Qualifying Report

The big news of the weekend so far was the weather.  It has caught a lot of drivers out; most notably Piastri, whose incident was avoided by Ricciardo, breaking his hand in the process.  Danny Ric was dispatched to Barcelona to visit the same surgeon who fixed Lance Stroll.  Everyone will have to look forward to the come back from the come back.

As Qualifying started, in wet weather conditions, Albon, a Haas and Verstappen quickly went off the track.  Several followed and it got wetter and wetter as the first session progressed.

Kiwi Liam Lawson stepped in for Alpha Tauri finished Qualifying last and went out alongside Bottas, Magnussen, Ocon and Zhou.  Alpine continue to sink to the bottom and you have to wonder how long Renault will continue to fund this catastrophe.  LeClerc just scraped through and, once again, berated his team publicly over the radio.  His advice?  They needed to manage their strategy with traffic better.

The second session saw the weather improve and drivers had to make decisions about tyres.  This was not supposed to be a good track for the Williams car but Albon and Sargeant both made it through to the third session.  Both cars got into the final part of Qualifying for the first time in years.  Albon was even in third.  Stroll went out, Gasly, Tsunoda and Hulkenberg.  Sargeant benefited from a huge timing mistake by Mercedes and Hamilton, which caused them to be out in 12th position.

At the start of the final session, Verstappen was the only driver out on Intermediate tyres instead of softs, which could have been a problem but he always gets the luck...  Just when I was wondering whether Williams are the new McLaren (who are the new Aston Martin), Sargeant spun his car heavily into the wall.  The session was stopped and the dire Dutch DJ started up again.

Just as we got started again, with Norris now in the lead, LeClerc hit the barriers and the session was stopped again.  I can't see that he can blame this one on the team and he apologised.  The Ferrari driver did an Alonso and sat by the side of the track on a deckchair watching the rest of the action.

There was only a couple of minutes to put in a final offer for the grid.  Verstappen went out and did the business and got his pole position.  After him it was all to play for, with Norris taking second position and Albon briefly getting third before being pushed down one place by Russell.  Alonso was in fifth.  It's notable that Sainz and Perez are 6th and 7th, being in much better cars than those ahead of them.  Piastri was in 8th, a gap his team mate Norris needs to reinforce his position as Number 1 in the team as the Aussie grows in experience, confidence and, most importantly, results.  The crashers finished the top ten.

For Albon his position was a "nice surprise".  Up and down the paddock there was delight that the Williams were showing more success.  Let's see where they actually finish the race though.  Alex was disappointed that one of the mid-field cars hadn't popped up in the middle of the top 10 to help him, all hopes are on Logan holding the pack up.