Oscar Piastri reveals when he knew Dutch GP pole was on

Lando Norris may have dominated free practice, but when it came to qualifying, Oscar Piastri was the McLaren driver to claim pole position.

Norris had set a new lap record at Zandvoort, but Piastri uncorked one of his own – 1:08.662 – to snatch pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix. He knew from the start of the race weekend though that pole was possible for him.

Oscar Piastri pips Lando Norris to Dutch GP pole

The F1 2025 campaign is back underway, and Piastri potentially struck a major blow in the title race in qualifying at Zandvoort. Piastri claimed his first pole position since Spain, and around the tight and twisty Circuit Zandvoort – with he and Norris so evenly matched – overtaking will be difficult.

Considering that Norris had topped every practice session before Piastri secured pole, he was asked in the post-qualifying press conference whether he knew from the start of qualifying that such an achievement was on.

“Yeah, definitely. But I knew that from FP1,” he revealed.

“I think the pace this weekend has been very strong. FP3, that seemed very, very strong. And I knew that the car wasn’t the problem. It was just that it was taking me a while to improve in some places.

“The team’s done a great job in firstly putting the car in a good place for me and also helping me improve myself.”

Identifying where he excelled and struggled across a lap of Zandvoort, Piastri added: “It’s changed a little bit through the weekend.

“Like I think yesterday, I feel like I made progress in FP2, but then FP3, not so much.

“And then the wind changed a little bit overnight. So some of the corners where I was stronger yesterday, became a bit weaker again. And it’s kind of moved around a little bit.

“The middle sector has not been my favourite this weekend, but I think eventually I got there, but just putting it all together on the same lap was not that easy.

“I feel like I’ve improved just generally from last year, but clearly I think qualifying has gone much better.

“I think also this is kind of the first normal Saturday we’ve had in Zandvoort. The last two years we’ve raced here, it’s been a wet FP3 or a wet start of qualifying and today, I was able to get more into a rhythm. And I think that helped as well.”

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As for Norris, he felt there was little wrong with either of his attempts at pole, but fine margins dictated the result in Piastri’s favour.

“I mean, both felt pretty good,” he said of his Q3 laps. “It feels quick around here, first of all. So yeah, I’ve been feeling pretty good the whole weekend. Always in the good flow around here, which is important. Both my laps were good.

“I don’t think many people, or we didn’t improve on our second runs, so I don’t know if the track got a little bit trickier or slower in the second run. But both were pretty close, I think both within half a tenth or tenth of pole position.

“Tricky also with the wind. It can easily just favour you or not favour you. And, yeah, one-hundredth is pretty minimal. Even coming out of the last corner, I’m a little bit up, and I lose like two-hundredths by the time I get to the start-finish line. And that’s pole position gone for me.

“There’s not too much to complain of. I think there were a couple of places where I wasn’t quite on a good enough limit and consistently losing a little bit too much lap time today and this weekend.

“So some places and things I need to work on. But otherwise, the laps are good, and I was still pretty happy.”

With Norris on the front row, Piastri will need to be wary of an attack from the sister McLaren heading down to Turn 1.

It was pointed out to Norris that last year, he overtook Max Verstappen on his way to an impressive victory, though he played down the significance of that compared to the task at hand versus Piastri.

“No offense to Max, Max was in a much slower car last year, so that helped a lot,” said Norris. “Oscar is in a much quicker car this year.

“And the hardest guy to normally overtake is your team-mate, especially when in a quali like today where we were split by one hundredth.

“It’s going to take some magic, it’s going to take some good strategy, or incredible tyre saving or something. But it’s normally pretty difficult to overtake in the first place. It’s even harder to do that behind your team-mate. So I’ll see what I can dream of tonight.”

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