2025 Dutch GP Qualifying Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Dutch GP qualifying preview. James has already posted an outright preview, read that here.

2025 Dutch GP Qualifying

The three practice sessions have been run, and we have a clear picture of which team will be on pole. No prizes for guessing that it is McLaren. Which driver looks to have the edge? Norris.

Lando Norris has been fastest in all three sessions and he looks to be really well dialled into this track, as he was last year. Piastri was 0.242 off Norris and on a short lap like this, that is a fairly big margin. We have seen Piastri turn it around before, or Norris dropping the ball, but Norris is looking much more comfortable and positive than he was earlier in the season. His stock is rising.

McLaren do look to be in a class of their own and the driver in third place in FP3 was George Russell. He was 0.886 slower than Lando, on a short track. It is ridiculous.

Best of The Rest

The competition to be best of the rest has been fluctuating session by session. On Friday it looked like Aston Martin were going to give McLaren something to think about, with Alonso within a tenth of Norris and faster than Piastri.

Even Stroll was third in FP1. The Canadian smashed his car up in FP2 and was down in eighth today. Alonso fared even worse, ending up tenth. He just had a messy lap on the softs and I expect that he can challenge Russell for best of the rest.

Williams have been surprisingly quick. Both top seven in FP3 and Sainz in fourth place. Bearing in mind that he has not made Q3 for the last seven races, that is quite a turnaround. They were uncompetitive in Hungary with its similar demands in terms of downforce, but they look to have good potential this weekend, which I did not expect.

The gap between Russell in third and Alonso in tenth was 0.374 and from tenth to fifteenth another 0.234. The track was a bit green in FP3 after overnight rain and it was evolving throughout the session, but it looked to have rubbered up by the end. The weather looks fine. There is a 20% chance of a shower but there is nothing on the radar.

Lando Favourite

Lando Norris is the 1.67 favourite and Piastri 3.00. Given that Piastri is 8-6 up in qualifying with Norris, there might be a bit of value in his odds, but Norris has looked very strong so far this weekend.

We backed Charles Leclerc for pole ante-post, but while Ferrari are better than they were yesterday, they were nearly a second off Norris. That bet is toast.

We also have Russell to beat Hamilton and he has been faster in all three sessions so far. Hamilton was down in fourteenth in FP3, but that was down to a mistake and it will be closer in qualifying.

There is very little value in any of the markets I have looked at but there is one bet I will add for qualifying. The qualifying winning margin tends to be very close on short tracks. In the four races here, it has been under 0.1 seconds twice. This season, eight qualifying sessions have seen under 0.1 seconds as the winning margin, including the last two. Obviously, it is only between two drivers, and not the three we had last weekend, but I expect Piastri to make it close today.

2025 Dutch GP qualifying tip: 1 point winning qualifying margin to be under 0.1 seconds @ 2.25 with Ladbrokes

-JamesPunt