04/09/2021
NEWS STORY
Uralkali Haas F1 Team drivers Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin qualified 19th and 20th, respectively, for Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, Round 13 of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at Circuit Zandvoort.
Schumacher and Mazepin exited the three-stage knockout qualifying after the opening Q1 session. Running the Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires exclusively, both drivers were first out the gates with Schumacher setting a lap of 1:12.281 and Mazepin a 1:12.274. With a second set of softs bolted on lap times dropped, Schumacher clocking a best tour of 1:11.387 with Mazepin logging a 1:11.875. That was as good as it got for the Uralkali Haas F1 Team duo - Schumacher and Mazepin ended the day locking out the rear of the grid having failed to go faster on a third and final set of soft tires.
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen delighted his home crowd securing pole position in Q3 - the seventh pole of 2021 for the Dutch title-contender. Verstappen's best lap of 1:08.885 beat Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes by .038 of a second.
Nikita Mazepain: "It's really difficult here with 20 cars on track. There was so much going on and that last corner is so tight with the gravel, so I tried to get on the power, but I was too late. The track improves all the time and for the last attempt I didn't have the opportunity - it was one of those qualifying sessions."
Mick Schumacher: "We'll have to go through and see what happened today. The biggest challenge is to find track position as the track is so short and if you have the right position, it makes a massive difference. We're both now in a situation which isn't great, and the last corner wasn't easy. We had high hopes for a better lap but it wasn't meant to be, but we'll be strong again. We'll try to do our best in the race tomorrow."
Guenther Steiner: "FP3 was a very standard FP3 for us, all went well. We did our laps and we got the experience. Qualifying was a bit more exciting for us, with the cars getting to the end of the lap and getting close to each other. In the end, we were trying to do the best we could, and it didn't work out. It is what it is - and tomorrow is the race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Zandvoort, here.