Winners and losers from sprint qualifying at F1's Dutch GP

Formula 1's first competitive session in almost a month delivered a closely fought battle for sprint pole and some interesting intra-team victories.

Below are our picks for the biggest winners and losers from sprint qualifying at Zandvoort.

Loser: Red Bull (6th and 11th)

Despite a disappointing SQ2 outcome relative to what he'd managed in SQ1, it's ultimately fair to say Liam Lawson is holding up his end of the bargain.

But the RB22 does appear fourth-best here, and a fourth-best enough that Max Verstappen's sixth is an arguable overperformance. As Verstappen himself put it, sounding a little sardonic: "I guess we outqualified one car."

He found his Red Bull more compliant than in practice but still not with the balance and grip that he needs - so the hopes rest on a significant change when the cars come out of parc ferme. - Val Khorounzhiy

Winner: Yuki Tsunoda (12th)

Tsunoda ended up with a similar laptime deficit to Arvid Lindblad as the equivalent in the sister team between the stand-in and full-timer - but gets the nod in the 'winner' category here (which is not to say Lawson disappointed).

Considering he has never qualified one of these cars before, 12th is a rock-solid return in the Racing Bulls car, and while you'd think the team-mate gaps here are diminished by the track length, the rest of the qualifying results do not overwhelmingly support that hypothesis.

Consider also that Lindblad went beyond the limits of the car trying to squeeze out more in SQ3, and this is a very good start for this latest line on Tsunoda's racing CV (that may or may not include IndyCar not so far down the line). - VK

Loser: Aston Martin (19th and 22nd) 

After what appeared to be a strong start in practice (Fernando Alonso was 12th), the debut of the upgraded Honda engine aboard the Aston Martin was a disappointment. 

Alonso ended up slowest of all with a failure that meant he couldn’t use straight mode, a huge loss in 2026 as it upsets the balance of the car and the energy requirements around the lap. He also complained of vibrations unrelated to his off at the first corner and struggled with the drivability of the new Honda engine. 

The quicker Aston Martin of Lance Stroll, whose straight mode was working, was still nearly seven tenths from making it into Q2.

It’s a big contrast to the team’s promising Hungarian GP weekend, which will have given the team hopes of fighting for a place in Q2 again at Zandvoort. 

The big question is how many of those driveability problems Honda can iron out, given this - Hungaroring filming day aside - is the first day it’s properly been tested in anger. - Josh Suttill

Winner: Pierre Gasly’s upgraded Alpine (8th)

After several races of toiling in an increasingly uncompetitive car, this looked much more like the level of performance Gasly and Alpine were achieving at the very start of the season.

The substantial upgrade Alpine has fast-tracked onto Gasly’s car for this event, featuring a substantially revised floor and diffuser, as well as new sidepods and rear brake drums, looks extremely powerful and, according to Alpine managing director Steve Nielson, was worth most of the 0.719s gap between the team’s two cars in SQ2.

McLaren made a huge step with a substantial floor upgrade for Hungary, and it seems Alpine has done something similar in the midfield here. That means mixed feelings for Franco Colapinto, who barely scraped through SQ1 and was out in SQ2 in 14th: on the one hand, he's delighted to see the team take a big step forward; on the other, he's frustrated his car won’t get to take that step until Monza. - Ben Anderson

Winner: George Russell (1st)

You could argue George Russell was the driver who most needed to excel this weekend, and he’s started that off perfectly with his team-mate Kimi Antonelli making multiple errors as he cruised through practice and qualifying almost without incident.

“It's good to remind myself I still got it and haven't forgotten how to drive,” stated Russell, whose difficulty in adapting to the specific demands of the 2026 cars is well documented.

“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,” he added, but his strategy of treating this weekend like the first race iof the season and not overthinking it led to an excellent pole where he clearly made the difference as four cars were within a tenth of a second - and none were his team-mate. - Jack Benyon

Loser: Lewis Hamilton (7th)

Hamilton's final push lap in sprint qualifying looked really ropey, easily ropey enough to account for a six-tenths gap to Leclerc - and he admitted afterwards it was "not a good session".

But rather than a consequence of errors creeping in, he felt the SF-26 had just got away from its sweet spot after "subtle adjustments" after practice that - correlation or causation - suddenly left him with a "completely different car".

"Charles is in a slightly different place than me [in terms of set-up], so a bit closer to where I was," Hamilton suggested. - VK

Loser: Kimi Antonelli (5th)

Antonelli’s stated loss of 25-points of downforce certainly explains his two-tenth time loss to team-mate George Russell.

It’s not the ideal return from the summer break for Antonelli, who spun in FP1 and then went off at Turn 12 in SQ1, causing damage.

“It was a little bit too much entry speed in the last corner in that lap one and lost the rear and went through the gravel,” he noted, adding he had holes in the floor of his car and it knocked his confidence.

These are the sorts of errors you can get away with when your team-mate and the opposition are floundering, but Antonelli needs to get back to executing at an elite level if he wants to avoid his momentum being eroded.

Winner: Alex Albon (16th) 

For the first time since Monaco, Alex Albon was the quicker Williams driver in a qualifying session - and by just under a tenth and a half. 

There’s no immediate driver market jeopardy for Albon, given he’s just recommitted to racing for Williams next year, but starting to reverse what’s been an extremely one-sided qualifying battle with Carlos Sainz this year certainly won’t hurt. 

Carlos Sainz’s tricky qualifying was partly explained by his multiple off-track moments in FP1 that damaged his Williams, and meant he had to be swapped to some sub-optimal parts. 

In Albon’s words, Williams is “struggling with our own demons” with parts consistency right now.

“With the parts on our car, just making sure that we're actually getting the best out of the bodywork, the car itself, that we actually have,” Albon explained.

“We've obviously had these cars for a while now, we haven't upgraded for a while, so they're a little bit worse for wear. We have to treat them nicely.”

Ultimately, Albon’s treated those parts nicer so far this weekend and reaped the (limited) benefits. - JS

Loser: Nico Hulkenberg 14th

A shocked Nico Hulkenberg was 0.830s slower than team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Zandvoort sprint qualifying and had nothing in the way of an explanation.

“I’m surprised myself,” he said, lamenting a “a day with two very different sessions”.

In FP1 he thought the car was “feeeling really good” and then “I went out in SQ1, it was a completely different sensation and I just didn't have the same grip anymore”.

Hulkenberg is very seldom that far off Bortoleto in any session, and even as he set his time earlier in the session and Bortoleto managed a session-best final sector, so that time gap is a worry. - JB

Winner: McLaren (2nd & 4th)

To miss out on pole by less than a tenth is always gut-wrenching, but Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri can at least be pleased that their race-winning pace from Hungary has at least somewhat translated to the first race following the summer break.

For both drivers, it went wrong with the switch to the soft tyre for SQ3.

“It's often the case this year that you put the soft tyre on and it's not quite as nice as the balance you have on the medium”, said Piastri, with Norris acknowledging he left time on the table with the compound switch.

But the positivity even just in discussing a session is clearly much higher than it was even two races ago, and the drivers seem very happy with where they are at generally. - JB

Winner: Esteban Ocon (15th)

Fifteenth place and an SQ2 exit isn’t much to shout about for a Haas team that is sliding backwards as midfield rivals relentlessly improve, but it is good news for Esteban Ocon to out-qualify both Williamses and be two tenths clear of Haas team-mate Ollie Bearman.

It’s no secret that Ocon’s seat is under threat for 2027, so it’s a good time for him to be pumping in this kind of performance. 

"It's positive that we're continuing on Budapest, getting the maximum out of the car,” he said. “The car felt quite decent since we put it down, no particular issues, which is what we are looking exactly into. 

“We still don't know why sometimes we have issues, but it's good when we don't have them because we can get the maximum out of the potential, and we did that today. 

“The first lap was very good, in front of the Audis even. We had a bit more degradation than the others on the second lap, so that's what we need to look at.” - BA