Championship leader Max Verstappen beat Charles Leclerc in Saturday’s qualifying at Zandvoort by just two hundredths of a second in the final and final Q3, taking pole position for the 2022 Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix race. .
The Zandvoort track is one of the most difficult on the calendar to overtake, so it is important for Leclerc to get ahead of Verstappen from the start if he wants to reduce the 98-point difference that currently separates them in the general classification.
The Monegasque hopes Ferrari can use having two cars starting in the top three to his advantage, with team-mate Carlos Sainz starting third.
“It’s a track where it’s very difficult to overtake,” Leclerc said after qualifying.
“Hopefully we’ll be as close as today, and hopefully we can play a little bit with Carlos’ car and mine to put Max under pressure.”
Leclerc believes opting for split strategies is “a good thing when we’re in a situation like this” but said he had yet to discuss the options with the team.
Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, and Carlos Sainz after qualifying
In last year’s race at Zandvoort, Mercedes also tried to split their strategies with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas with the same goal, to defeat Verstappen , but the Dutch driver managed to comfortably win his home race.
Ferrari will be looking for its first victory since the Austrian Grand Prix in mid-July this Sunday, which has made the difference between the two teams grow notably in both championships in the last three rounds.
Verstappen took a resounding victory for Red Bull at Spa last weekend despite starting from 14th, although the performance gap to Ferrari appears to have narrowed at Zandvoort.
Sainz , meanwhile, said it would be “a tight race” at the front, saying Red Bull and even Mercedes “look like extra pace that we haven’t had lately” on Sundays.
“But if we remember the races in France and Austria, we did have it on Sunday, didn’t we?” Sainz added.
“So yeah, hopefully it’s more like those races and we can challenge Max.”
In response to whether he thought Mercedes would join the fight at the front, the Spanish Ferrari driver said: “Yes, I think they are going to be at least as quick as us in the race, and I think they are going to be in the mix. It’s going to be a good fight with the other five cars.”
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