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George Russell secured pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix sprint race after a late Mercedes improvement put him ahead of reigning world champion Lando Norris by just 0.041 seconds.
Russell’s 1m11.567s lap in the final session delivered his second sprint pole of the 2026 season, following his success in Shanghai at round two. The result was not obvious from the earlier running: Charles Leclerc topped SQ1, while Oscar Piastri was fastest in SQ2. Mercedes, however, found the decisive pace when it mattered most.
Leclerc finished third for Ferrari, only 0.055s away from pole, with Piastri fourth at 0.099s from Russell. The narrow margins at the front underline how little separated the leading cars in the final session and set up a closely matched shortened race on Saturday.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli will start fifth in the second Mercedes. He was 0.227s off his team-mate, while Max Verstappen was a further three tenths behind in sixth for Red Bull. The result follows a difficult qualifying session for Verstappen, whose team has also been the subject of attention during the reshuffle involving Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda.
That storyline is covered in Red Bull’s decision to overlook Arvid Lindblad for the Dutch Grand Prix call-up.
Lewis Hamilton struggled in the sister Ferrari, qualifying seventh and ending the session 0.624s behind Russell. Pierre Gasly took eighth for Alpine, five tenths behind Hamilton, followed by Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad. Bortoleto was 1.016s off pole, with Lindblad 1.170s adrift.
Lawson’s return to Red Bull produced an 11th-place result after he was eliminated by Lindblad. “I have no idea what happened,” the New Zealander reported after missing SQ3 by four tenths. He will share the sixth row with Tsunoda, who is returning to Formula 1 action with Racing Bulls.
Franco Colapinto and Nico Hulkenberg will occupy the seventh row, while Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon completed the SQ2 elimination zone. Oliver Bearman’s late improvement placed him 17th, one position ahead of Williams driver Carlos Sainz, who was pushed into elimination by Ocon.
The final four places went to Lance Stroll in 19th, Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez in 20th and 21st, and Fernando Alonso in 22nd. Alonso locked up at Turn 1 and finished last despite receiving a tow from a Cadillac. It was later confirmed that the straight-line mode on his rear wing had not worked, compounding his difficult sprint qualifying session.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.