ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (AP) — Lando Norris found unexpected pace to beat his rivals and the weather to take pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix on Saturday after George Russell took a sprint race win on Formula 1’s return from its mid-season break.
As rain started to fall on the Zandvoort track, McLaren’s Norris made the most of his final run to reclaim pole by 0.102 of a second from Russell, whose Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli — the standings leader — was third.
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“A little surprised, honestly, but a decent lap," said Norris, who'd been critical of his car in the earlier sprint race and credited McLaren with making the right changes.
“We had to try something because what we had before wasn’t going to be enough," he said, adding the changes were small but "enough to give me some confidence.”
Norris won the last race in Hungary on July 26 but was deflated after the sprint, saying McLaren wasn't competitive at all in slower corners.
Russell is rebuilding his title challenge after losing ground to Antonelli last month and said it was “a real joy” to drive in qualifying. The plan now is to “get in my groove again and try to fight with them tomorrow," he added.
Lewis Hamilton lost ground to Antonelli in the standings in the sprint race. His difficult day continued with fifth in qualifying.
The sprint race was a display of domination from Russell, who started from pole position, quickly built a gap to Norris in second and managed the pace from there, taking his first win since the Austrian Grand Prix in June.
“Obviously a great start to the weekend,” he said.
Charles Leclerc snatched second off Norris with a daring pass into the inside of the first corner with six laps to go, but couldn’t get close enough to try passing Russell.
Norris held off a late charge from Antonelli to stay third as the Italian pulled out of a potential overtaking move on the final lap.
“We just don’t have the pace in general, especially in the slow-speed corners,” Norris said.
Fourth-place Antonelli, starting fifth after car damage in qualifying, still managed to extend his standings lead by three more points to 53 because Hamilton could only manage seventh for Ferrari.
F1 still hasn’t had a wet race this year but came tantalizingly close as rain fell as the drivers were heading back to the pits, seconds after the sprint finished.
“If there was one more lap it would have been a very, potentially, different end to the race so I’m glad the rain came when it did,” Russell said.
While it stayed dry, overtaking was difficult, even in a year where the cars’ electrical power has made back-and-forth passes common. The overtakes by Leclerc and Antonelli were the only changes of position anywhere in the top 11 finishers.
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