As the crowd went wild, flares were lit, and the colour orange was spread across the track. The home fans were rewarded with the first ever Dutch driver to claim pole position at the Dutch GP.
Max Verstappen showed fantastic speed in FP3 and was the favourite to claim pole at this Grand Prix but with the numerous red flags it wasn’t over until the chequered flag came out at the end of Q3.
Here is how it went:
Q1
A reasonably quiet Q1 session in terms of crashes and spins which was unexpected due to the immense amount of cars qualifying at once.
No crashes occurred but the issue of traffic did cause some major players to be booted out of their top 15 chances early on.
Perez went out of Q1 due to him once again missing his last flying lap by 1 second. The Red Bull team was disappointed but admitted that they possibly should have deployed Perez earlier.
An unbelievable performance from Latifi who went 5th fastest in Q1.
Sebastian Vettel also went out of Q1 after being blocked on a fast lap by Nikita Mazepin which was soon put under investigation. Two major players were out and the traffic problem showed its face early on.
Out in Q1:
16. Perez
17. Vettel
18. Kubica
19. Schumacher
20. Mazepin
Q2
Halfway into Q2 the drama started to emerge.
George Russell flew off the track and into the gravel trap on the entry into the last corner. He touched the barriers but surprisingly was able to limp his car out and make it back to the pits under his own power.
Due to the accident the session was pre-emptively red flagged even though Russell was able to drive the Williams back to the pits.
But disaster was to strike again for Williams…
The second Williams also folded under the pressure of the tight turns as Latifi also came off the track coming out of turn 8. This time with much more speed and a more serious violent slam into the barriers.
It seemed Latifi had already put a wheel in the dirt before entering the corner and then losing it and sending his car off track.
The session was then deemed finished as there were only 3 minutes reaming after the previous red flag following the Russell incident.
That meant some drivers were unable to finish a last chance lap to get themselves out of the elimination zone.
A shock exit was lando Norris who has been on great form for the entire 2021 season.
Here are the drivers that exited Q2:
11. Russell
12. Stroll
13. Norris
14. Latifi
15. Tsunoda
Q3
It was all about the home hero in Q3.
Max Verstappen sped to an amazing 1.08.885s lap with only Hamilton able to match the Dutch driver into the 1.08s.
All the other drivers failed to match his pace and after holding on to his provisional pole, Max was finally announced as the pole position driver for his home grand prix!
The fans were bursting with joy and will be hastily awaiting the race tomorrow!
It will be one you wont want to miss!
Here are the final classifications from qualifying:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | 1:10.036 | 1:09.071 | 1:08.885 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | 1:10.114 | 1:09.726 | 1:08.923 |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | 1:10.219 | 1:09.769 | 1:09.222 |
| 4 | Pierre Gasly | 1:10.274 | 1:09.541 | 1:09.478 |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc | 1:09.829 | 1:09.437 | 1:09.527 |
| 6 | Carlos Sainz | 1:10.022 | 1:09.870 | 1:09.537 |
| 7 | Antonio Giovinazzi | 1:10.050 | 1:10.033 | 1:09.590 |
| 8 | Esteban Ocon | 1:10.179 | 1:09.919 | 1:09.933 |
| 9 | Fernando Alonso | 1:10.435 | 1:10.020 | 1:09.956 |
| 10 | Daniel Ricciardo | 1:10.255 | 1:09.865 | 1:10.166 |
| 11 | George Russell | 1:10.382 | 1:10.332 | |
| 12 | Lance Stroll | 1:10.438 | 1:10.367 | |
| 13 | Lando Norris | 1:10.489 | 1:10.406 | |
| 14 | Nicholas Latifi | 1:10.093 | 1:11.161 | |
| 15 | Yuki Tsunoda | 1:10.462 | 1:11.314 | |
| 16 | Sergio Perez | 1:10.530 | ||
| 17 | Sebastian Vettel | 1:10.731 | ||
| 18 | Robert Kubica | 1:11.301 | ||
| 19 | Mick Schumacher | 1:11.387 | ||
| 20 | Nikita Mazepin | 1:11.875 |
Featured image source: twitter.com/redbullracing