Dutch Grand Prix: George Russell claims pole position for sprint race at Zandvoort
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Russell takes pole position for Dutch GP sprint race
Image source: Getty Images
Image caption: George Russell is third in the drivers’ championship
By Andrew Benson, F1 Correspondent in Zandvoort
Published 21 August 2026, 16:32 BST | Updated 7 minutes ago
Mercedes’ George Russell secured his first pole position for four races during qualifying for the sprint race at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Briton, trailing championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 59 points, was just 0.041 seconds faster than McLaren’s Lando Norris in second place.
Antonelli managed only fifth, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri’s second McLaren. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was sixth, followed by Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, who is 50 points behind Antonelli.
Russell’s pole position marked the perfect restart to the second half of the season for him after losing ground to Antonelli in the previous three races post-summer break, culminating with his victory in Austria in late June.
"It has been a tough end to the first part of the year so I am really happy to be back," said Russell. "The lap felt really good. It’s always challenging in sprint qualifying because we have just one chance to put it all together but it came together nicely."
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Russell, who was 0.227 seconds faster than Antonelli, has a chance to reduce the Italian’s point lead in Saturday’s shorter sprint race—approximately one-third of a standard Grand Prix distance.
"It has been a little while since I topped the timesheets in any session," he added. "I can’t even remember the last time. It was good to remind myself that I can still drive and the break came at a good moment."
Norris, winner of the previous race in Hungary, expressed satisfaction with second place despite believing he could have taken pole had he maximized his soft tyres during the final laps.
"Really happy," Norris said. "Still a good position. It was a reasonable qualifying, close between all teams—exactly what we expected. But a little bit disappointing to be P2 rather than P1."
Leclerc, who finished just 0.055 seconds behind Russell, described his performance as the best qualifying lap of the year for him.
Meanwhile, Hamilton acknowledged that his car had been "completely different" during qualifying compared to practice sessions and admitted he needed to find out what went wrong.
