Unstoppable Verstappen! He will start the home Grand Prix from first place

Formula 1 heads to Zaandvort in the Netherlands for its 14th round of the season. In front of stands filled with orange, Verstappen took pole position in Saturday’s qualifying.

Q1

After the first few laps, home hero Max Verstappen set the pace. Just two tenths of a second behind him were the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

A full second behind his teammate was Sergio Pérez. After 11 minutes, he was up to fifteenth place.

But as always, the first cavlification is not about the fastest, but the slowest. Specifically, it’s about the five slowest riders who drop out of qualifying.

Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Nicholas Latifi bid an early farewell to qualifying.

Great laps were set by Juki Cunoda and Lance Stroll. Stroll took his Aston Martin to seventh place, ten places higher than teammate Sebastian Vettel. The Japanese driver set the third fastest time, with only Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton faster.

Q2

Q2 was abandoned after one minute and six seconds. One of the fans threw a smoke bomb on the track, which of course had to be removed.

The track staff removed not only the smoke bomb during the red flags, but also the fan who threw the smoke bomb on the track and the pigeons that were watching the formula from a very dangerous distance on the inside of turn seven.

After a few minutes the drivers returned to the track and immediately set a very fast pace. Verstappen set a time of 1:10.927 on the used tyres, with Hamilton coming closest, but he set a time 148 thousandths slower on the new tyres.

All the drivers except the reigning champion went out for their second fast laps. Verstappen thought his time was fast enough and he was right. Only Carlos Sainz and George Russell managed a faster time.

Surprising times were set by Mick Schumacher and, as in Q1, Lance Stroll. The Canadian qualified third for the first time since the VC Miami.

Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso, Zhou Guangyu and Alex Albon dropped out of the second qualifying session.

Q3

A great Saturday unfortunately ended early for Stroll. Due to technical problems he did not make it to Q3.

In the battle for pole position, Red Bull made its first move. Unusually, he sent his car out on track first. Verstappen, despite a small mistake at turn three, set a time half a second faster than Sergio Pérez.

Only Leclerc and Hamilton could keep up with the Dutchman in the early laps. The Monegasque drove his Ferrari around the Zaandvoort track six hundredths faster, with the seven-time world champion less than two tenths behind Leclerc.

Leclerc was the first to start his last fast lap. He improved by a tenth of a second despite a bad middle sector.

Verstappen, on the other hand, had a great middle sector. He was just two hundredths of a second quicker than the Monegasque driver. His time of 1:10.342 was good enough for pole position.

Carlos Sainz was a tenth slower and moved up to third. The rest of the field couldn’t complete their laps because of Sergio Pérez, who crashed at the penultimate corner.

In the Twitter post below, you can see the order in which the drivers will start tomorrow’s race.

Source: Formula 1, Twitter