Russell rebuilds confidence with F1 Sprint pole, while Antonelli is slowed by floor damage

George Russell says he arrived at the Dutch Grand Prix with lower confidence than usual due to his 2026 season so far, but that his Sprint pole position provided a timely boost.

The Mercedes driver has only won on two occasions this year, with his victory in Austria his only win other than the season opener in Melbourne. Russell scored just six points across the two rounds prior to the summer break to fall 59 points behind teammate Kimi Antonelli. But after using the time off during the summer break as a chance to reset, he beat McLaren's Lando Norris to pole position for the Sprint at Zandvoort.

“It's been a little while since I've been top of the time sheets in any session,” Russell said. “I can't even remember the last time. So it's good to remind myself I’ve still got it and haven't forgotten how to drive. And the break came at a good point.

“Of course, it's only the Sprint session. Still got the job to do tomorrow; the main qualifying is going to be the key one. And McLaren look really fast, Ferrari look quick – it's been a real surprise to us as a team these past couple of races. But we're in a good spot.

“I've got to be honest, I came into this weekend with a real open mind because I had no idea how it was going to go – confidence level wasn't exactly at my highest. But just trying to remember that feeling of what I needed from myself and the car, and just go in and almost treat it like the first race of the season again and not overthink things. And that seems to work well for me.

“It's very difficult to actually put those words into action. But I always know when I'm in the right frame of mind, come Q3 I can always deliver. It's just ensuring I'm in that right frame of mind ahead of that point.”

Russell believes Ferrari has the quickest car in race trim so far in the Netherlands, but is confident track position will be key.

“I think just a good start, to be honest," he said when asked what the most important thing will be in converting the qualifying performance into Sprint victory. "I think it's going to be a very challenging circuit to overtake. The Ferrari's race pace looked exceptionally strong this morning. We look quite offset, to be honest, in the order of three or four tenths, so we’ll see if that translates into tomorrow; but a clean start and that should be enough.”

Antonelli ended up fifth on the grid and 0.227s adrift of his Mercedes teammate, and says he sustained car damage with a trip through the gravel in SQ1 that hampered his performance.

“I had a couple of holes in the floor,” Antonelli said. “So when I came in, they initially said it was a loss of 25 points [of downforce]. Then they tried to repair as much as possible, but definitely the damage was still there. I was struggling a lot in the low speed. But it is what it is.

“It was a little bit too much entry speed in the last corner in that [first] lap and lost the rear and went through the gravel, and that was pretty much it. And then obviously, it was also not easy to build the confidence back. But still decently close and we'll have another go tomorrow.

“Of course it's very close at the front, so it's not going to be easy to overtake. But we'll try to do the best we can, even with the damage. Then for qualifying, we're going to tidy the car up and go again.”