George Russell reflects on “very challenging” Dutch F1 qualifying as Isack Hadjar pips him to P4

George Russell qualified fifth at Zandvoort, surprised to trail Racing Bull's Isack Hadjar in P4

Mercedes driver George Russell was frustrated after a challenging qualifying session ahead of the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix. Securing fifth on the grid, he will sit behind Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar, who impressed with a P4 performance.

The Briton, speaking to Sky Sports F1 following his Saturday campaign at Zandvoort, conceded he was caught off guard by the Frenchman.

"Yeah, he did a great job, to be honest," Russell said of the driver's surprise placement. "It's been really tight all weekend between the majority of the field and you saw how fast the Astons were in practice and you just don't hook it up in that Q3 lap and then you'll be a few positions down the order but P5, anywhere from P3 to P5 is sort of where we were but we probably didn't expect to be behind Isack."

Talking of his own performance, the Mercedes driver failed to extract the performance necessary from his car to place himself further up the grid.

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

"To be honest, no, I don't think [I extracted everything from the car]. It was very challenging. Qualifying didn't feel very smooth, wasn't very comfortable. It's difficult this circuit, especially with how windy it is."

The weather conditions created a difficult Saturday afternoon for several drivers with the circuit being so close to the coast. But tyre management was also a factor.

"If you just hook it up, it's a track where you could find sort of four-tenths from not really doing much different. It's just one small slide, the tyres overheat and then you sort of lose a couple of tenths in the subsequent corners, whereas other laps you can just be like 1% below the limit, you have no slides and you just have more and more grip and a really strong lap time comes.

"So as I said, it wasn't an amazing day, but P5 is... the race is tomorrow."

Despite this, Russell still targets a podium finish on the Sunday.

"I think realistically anywhere from P3 to... yeah, P3 is what we're fighting for really. I think our long-run pace looked reasonably good, but it's going to come down to strategy because it's very challenging to overtake around here."