2025 Dutch Grand Prix Qualifying

James Vowles, Carlos Sainz & Alex Albon react after Qualifying

Published

30 AUG 2025

Est. reading time

2 min

James Vowles, Team Principal: Well done to Carlos – really great execution and well done to the team in what I suspect is the closest grid we've seen in Formula 1. With Alex, the pace was clearly there today, and I’m confident he had the pace to reach Q3. But we’re right on a knife edge with getting the tyres to work, and a slightly slower out lap behind another car tipped us the wrong way. That’s something we’ll review and make sure we refine operationally going forward. More importantly, though, we need to give ourselves more flexibility to cope with a wider range of situations. Irrespective of today, we know the race car is strong. Overtaking is never easy here, but there will be potential opportunities tomorrow – especially if the weather comes into play.

Carlos Sainz: Once the track temperatures went up, we lost performance from FP3 to Qualifying and I felt it straight away. We needed very solid laps to progress through the session and, whilst it’s slightly disappointing to not be higher up the order, we maximised what we could and P9 is a decent position to fight tomorrow. We’ll keep an eye on the weather and give our best during the race.

Alex Albon: It’s been a frustrating afternoon. We’ve been quick all weekend and strong in Qualifying, but on our second lap in Q2 we just didn’t have the tyres. The operating window is so small, and after queuing for several minutes in the pitlane our out lap was compromised. Obviously, it wasn’t intentional, but for us every detail has to be perfect, and the out lap is crucial. I was confident we could comfortably make the top ten, but we were out of the window. The margins between Q2 and Q3 are so tight now that you can’t afford mistakes or a poor out lap. Tomorrow will be tough as this track can be a bit of a train, but let’s see what the weather brings and what we can do.

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