Max Verstappen snatches pole from Charles Leclerc in Dutch GP qualifying which sums up season

On the face of it, this looks like a customary Saturday at the office for runaway championship leader Max Verstappen at his home race, securing pole position at Zandvoort on a track notoriously difficult to overtake. But unlike Spa last week, this was tight. The tightest margin of the year, in fact.

Charles Leclerc, 98 points off Verstappen in the standings with eight races to go, had the advantage throughout the final qualifying session. But a few acutely minor errors on his final improved run opened the door to Verstappen and the Flying Dutchman powered through, capturing top spot by just 0.021 seconds for, perhaps surprisingly, just his fourth pole of 2022.

“It’s pretty obvious I made a mistake in turn 10, I lost a tenth,” a rueful Leclerc said afterwards. “It happens when you push it to the limit but it’s good when we’re fighting for pole position.”

Leclerc’s teammate at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz, was also within a tenth coming home in third, while it was an enormously frustrating final minute or so of qualifying for Mercedes.

Competing alongside, not behind, the top two teams for first place throughout the course of this weekend, the Silver Arrows gambled by placing their drivers at the back of the pack on their final runs.

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But it backfired as ironically it was Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez whose spin on the final corner put an end to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s final flying laps, with yellow flags in sector three forcing the duo to lift right at the very end.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton, still hunting his first pole and victory of the year, would have been right on the cusp, judging by his first two sectors.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was more firm with his verdict, though refused to place blame on Perez: “It’s very frustrating. We were a tenth up on Verstappen and Leclerc so Lewis was going for pole. But it’s not the case in the end. He [Sergio] pushed it a lot and lost it, it’s not his fault.”

Instead, Hamilton will line up alongside Sainz on the second row, with Russell further back in sixth and Perez fifth due to their first runs in Q3.

Asked how he would sum up his Saturday afternoon, Russell said: “Not brilliant, the car was feeling good all weekend. It didn’t come together for me today. A little bit frustrating.

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“P6 isn’t a terrible place to start and I see no reason that we can’t fight for a podium. I hope Ferrari put all their focus on Max which leaves them vulnerable. I think we have more pace than Ferrari and Sergio.”

Lando Norris was, again, the best of the rest in seventh while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo – who will be replaced by Oscar Piastri for 2023 as confirmed on Friday – failed to escape Q1 and will start a lowly 17th on the grid.

At the front, though, in front of a boisterous home crowd – sometimes too boisterous judging by the flare thrown on track which forced a red flag early in Q2, with the perpetrator removed – it will take some drama at the start to stop Verstappen, who coasted to victory last year in Holland.

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At the third-shortest track on the calendar, and with the race lasting 72 laps, strategy could play a part if Ferrari can execute the right decisions at the optimum times – something which failure to do this season has put paid to their Championship chances.

Yet Saturday, in many ways, sums up the whole season. Mercedes are clearly third-best on the grid, while Ferrari has the pace to compete with Red Bull. Ultimately though, Verstappen’s quality and rare world-class talent prevailed once more as he looks to stretch his championship lead to three figures amid the sand dunes and orange flares on the North Sea coastline.