Christian Horner admits why Lando Norris has ‘preferred position’ to beat Max Verstappen to Dutch Grand Prix win

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has explained what Max Verstappen must do to win a fourth F1 Dutch Grand Prix in a row after missing out on pole to Lando Norris.

Saturday sprung a surprise according to the form book as Norris beat Verstappen to get pole position by 0.356 seconds. Zandvoort had been a playground that only the Red Bull pilot has mastered since Formula 1 returned to it in 2021, having won each meet from P1 on the grid.

Verstappen also won by 20.932 seconds from Lewis Hamilton in 2021, before edging George Russell and Fernando Alonso by tighter margins in 2022 and 2023. He further sealed pole by 0.537s over Norris last year. But he will start behind the McLaren driver for the 2024 edition.

Lando Norris is in the ‘preferred place’ to win the Dutch Grand Prix with pole position

Norris further had Verstappen beaten in each stage of qualifying for the 2024 Dutch GP. The 24-year-old led the three-time defending drivers’ champion by only 0.016 seconds in Q1, yet moved 0.315s ahead in Q2 as Verstappen struggled with understeer and then 0.356s in Q3.

Just the McLaren ace dreaming about overhauling Verstappen’s 78-point lead in the drivers’ championship also lapped Zandvoort in the 1:09s in qualifying. His 1:09.673 lap to take pole was the outright best lap of the session, with Verstappen’s time for P2 also the second-best.

READ MORE: Five unforgettable Dutch Grand Prix including Prost and Piquet’s drama

Pole position now gives Norris the best chance to win the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday over Verstappen, according to Horner. The Red Bull team boss believes the short run into Turn 1 proves the importance of starting P1 with Zandvoort historically a poor track for overtaking.

“He’s on the clean side of the grid,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 (24/08, 15:35). “Theoretically, he’s got that couple of metres from the pole, that’s why it’s the preferred position. So, let’s see. We’ll need to get a good start [as] it’s not that long a run into Turn 1.”

Lando Norris will hope the third time’s the charm to fulfil Christian Horner’s prediction

The distance from the grid at Zandvoort into the banked Tarzan first corner is 215 metres. In contrast, the Mexico City Grand Prix boasts a 990-metre run – the longest on the Formula 1 calendar – and Turn 1 of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is hardly visible from the grid.

Norris will hope the shorter run proves beneficial as he spurned starting from pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix and Hungarian Grand Prix. Verstappen pulled level with Norris off the grid in Barcelona and even briefly led before Turn 1 thanks to a 579 metre run from the grid.

Oscar Piastri also won the McLaren driver’s maiden Grand Prix at the Hungarian GP after he passed Norris into T1. The Australian, like Verstappen in Spain, made the better launch than Norris, who could not defend the lead of the race from pole position, which proved costly.