Norris strips Piastri of hope for pole, as Hamilton's woeful F1 stint continues

Lando Norris made it a hat trick as he topped FP3 for the Dutch GP as well, followed by Oscar Piastri at nearly two and a half tenths off with George Russell, Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen closing out the top 5.

How it happened

FP3 got underway under beautiful and clear blue Zandvoort skies. The front-runners took their time before getting out on track.

When they did, Lando Norris set the pace, albeit with a time 2 seconds off his best lap from yesterday. Verstappen on mediums gave the Brit a run for his money in the first sector, before losing everything in Sectors 2 and 3.

Oscar Piastri turned the tables on his teammate as he took the top spot from Norris, with George Russell slotting in in P3. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc followed in P4 and P5, with Verstappen well down in P8 just ahead of Racing Bulls drivers, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson, and his Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda in P12.

The dark horses from yesterday, Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll this time did not have the shock effect they did on the prior two practice sessions, finding themselves well down the order in P13 and P14 respectively.

Lando Norris then set the timing sheets on fire, putting up the fastest times per sector of the whole weekend, to a cumulative effort of 1:08.972, nearly a second quicker than his pole position lap from 2024.

Piastri could not match his teammate, trailing the Briton by nearly two and a half tenths.

Russell and Verstappen could only manage times just under a second slower than Norris', with Stroll exceeding the one second barrier in the gap to Norris during his flier.

Then Alonso, as he peeled into the pits, forced George Russell to take evasive action as the Mercedes driver was also looking to pit, but in the end, after several attempts to turn into the pitlane he ran out of room.

Alonso summed up the event, in his view, on the onboard radio stating that his fellow F1 drivers never look at their mirrors. Race Control sent a message announcing the Stewards would be investigating the incident after the session.

Charles Leclerc's run saw him end up in P6 as Hamilton's best effort saw him place in P14.