Despite pole win, Norris uncertain of Dutch GP race pace

Lando Norris believes he will face a tough task trying to win the Dutch Grand Prix due to McLaren’s strengths and weaknesses, despite securing a second consecutive pole position.

The final race before the summer shutdown saw Norris win from pole in Hungary, ending Mercedes’ dominance of qualifying before taking his first victory of the season. Starting second in the Sprint on Saturday morning, Norris faded a little late in the race to finish third, and he believes a similar story could unfold on Sunday even though he beat George Russell to pole.

"We’ve not changed that much,” Norris said. “There wasn’t a lot we could change. We were pretty happy that we’re getting everything out of the car. We’ve tried to hint it into a direction that would help.

“It seemed to, I guess, in terms of lap time. Certainly, the car didn’t feel that much better in the places we were struggling. Our biggest losses were still the same places, the same corners as it was this morning. It’s just new tires, low fuel, it just seems to mask quite a few of our issues, and that was probably still the case today.

“And I just drove well. I just put a lot of things together. I got more out of my lap than I did yesterday. Still wasn’t a perfect lap, but I’m driving well. And like I said last [race] weekend, when the car can be in a place where I have a little bit of confidence and I can drive to the level I can drive at, then we can be on pole.

“Certainly [worried about the Sprint issues]. We’ve not changed those things. Our car is certainly the best in high speed, no doubt – or I have the biggest balls, I don’t know! – but it’s very, very strong there, and in low speed we just really still struggle too much to be confident about everything. We definitely made maybe a little bit of progress, but it’s still going to be the trickier side of things tomorrow.”

Norris shares the front row with Russell – who won the Sprint earlier on Saturday –and the Mercedes driver admits he’s confident in his chances of getting the better of the defending champion once again.

“I think we’re in a great place, to be honest,” Russell said. “Obviously, we’ve got Kimi [Antonelli] and I in P2 and P3, so it gives us a bit of an opportunity to put Lando under a bit of pressure strategically. And I think we probably have a slightly faster race car than those guys.

“I think, as Lando said, they look very strong in the high-speed corners, and on a track like this with high tire degradation, you can’t really utilize that performance as much in the race because it just puts too much stress in the tires. So, I think it will come towards us.

“Ferrari are a little bit further down the order than we would have expected. I think they would have been the biggest threat. So, it’s game on.”