Oscar Piastri found the gear that mattered when it mattered most, snatching pole for the Dutch Grand Prix with a razor-thin 1:08.662 that edged McLaren teammate Lando Norris by a hundredth. After Norris ran the table in practice and reset the Zandvoort benchmark earlier in the day, it was Piastri who put the lap together when the lights went up in Q3.
It’s his first pole since Spain and a timely statement as the 2025 title picture tightens heading into the late-summer run. On a circuit that punishes hesitation and offers precious little clean air or overtaking chances, track position is half the battle. McLaren locked out the front row. Advantage papaya — advantage Piastri.
He’d felt this one coming, even as Norris stole the headlines on Friday and Saturday morning. “Yeah, definitely. But I knew that from FP1,” Piastri said. “The pace this weekend has been very strong. FP3 seemed very, very strong. I knew the car wasn’t the problem, it was just 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.”
The nuance of Zandvoort — camber, wind and blind crests wrapped in orange smoke — bit plenty. Piastri admitted the middle sector hadn’t been his friend, and that the weekend blew around with the breeze. “It’s changed a little bit. I feel like I made progress in FP2, but then FP3 not so much,” he said. “The wind changed a little bit overnight. Some corners where I was stronger yesterday became a bit weaker again. The middle sector has not been my favourite, but I think eventually I got there… just putting it all together on the same lap was not that easy.”
Crucially, this was a dry, rhythm-building Saturday at Zandvoort — a rarity. “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,” he added.
Norris, who has been the metronome of the weekend, didn’t feel he left much on the table. That’s the sting of being beaten by 0.01s: you can’t point at one corner; it’s the whisper of a correction, the tiniest lift, the wind nudging a rear wing at the wrong instant.
“I’ve been feeling pretty good the whole weekend,” he said. “Both my laps were good. I don’t think many people, or we didn’t improve on our second runs… both were pretty close, I think both within half a tenth or tenth of pole. Tricky also with the wind. It can easily just favour you or not favour you. 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 line, and that’s pole gone.”
He knows the calculus for Sunday. Last year he breezed past Max Verstappen here on his way to a statement win, but Norris was quick to park any comparisons. “No offense to Max, Max was in a much slower car last year, so that helped a lot. 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, some good strategy, or incredible tyre saving. It’s normally pretty difficult to overtake in the first place. It’s even harder behind your team-mate. I’ll see what I can dream of tonight.”
The run to Turn 1 is short, the line tight, and McLaren’s debrief tonight will be as much about cooperation as competition. Whoever leads into Tarzan can control the first stint and force everyone else into reactive strategy windows. From there, it’s about tyre life and not getting trapped in traffic when the stops kick off — something Zandvoort punishes with relish.
What this means for the larger narrative is simple enough: McLaren’s relentless development has put them in the sweet spot, and their drivers are pushing each other into new territory. Piastri’s Saturday was the mark of a contender — calm, tidy, fast where it counted. Norris remains the weekend’s yardstick on long runs and feel. Together, they’ve turned Zandvoort orange-and-papaya.
A hundredth separated them today. On Sunday, the margin could be measured in metres to Turn 1, or in how well they hit a two-stop crossover window. Either way, it’s McLaren’s race to lose — and Oscar Piastri’s to own from pole.
