Lewis Hamilton was forced to abort his final flying lap in Dutch GP qualifying when Red Bull's Sergio Perez crashed at the final corner; Max Verstappen took pole as Hamilton finished fourth; watch Sunday's race live at 2pm on Sky Sports F1, with build-up from 12.30pm
Saturday 3 September 2022 17:47, UK
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff claimed Lewis Hamilton was on course for his first pole position of the season at the Dutch GP before Sergio Perez's crash forced the Brit to abort his effort.
Hamilton and Mercedes team-mate George Russell were the final members of the top six to go out for their final flying runs, and were forced to slow down when Perez spun in the final corner in the dying seconds of the session.
That meant world championship leader Max Verstappen took a home pole from Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, with Hamilton fourth by virtue of his first Q3 run, and Russell sixth behind Perez.
"It's very frustrating," Wolff told Sky Sports F1 after the session.
"We were a tenth up on Verstappen and Leclerc, so Lewis was on for pole.
"We were ahead. Obviously it's not the case at the end.
"I think he [Perez] pushed it a lot and lost it. It's not his fault.
"You lose the pole because of a yellow flag or you lose the pole because of a few hundredths by running first. It's always afterwards that you know better."
Despite their frustration at missing out on a front-row spot, Mercedes' performance at Zandvoort has represented an impressive turnaround from last weekend's showing at Spa, when they were more than a second off Verstappen in qualifying.
Wolff is not giving up hope of his team claiming a first victory of the season on Sunday.
"Anything is possible," Wolff added. "We have a strong race car starting second row, so let's see where that can get us tomorrow."
Hamilton admitted he was not sure he had quite enough pace to top Verstappen, but was adamant he was in the fight for a front-row spot on the grid.
"I was fighting for it," the seven-time world champion said. "It was really such a positive feeling to come from a difficult weekend, a difficult result. The car has completely transformed this weekend just because of the different type of track.
"To be fighting with only a tenth between us and the Red Bull, it would have felt very reminiscent of the good times of last year, and I really was hoping maybe I could just make that little difference and potentially get ahead.
"At the end I was up, but whether or not it was up enough to be pole, probably not, but definitely fighting for the front row."
Hamilton, who narrowly missed out on an eighth world title to Verstappen last season, has endured a challenging campaign, with Mercedes' domination of the sport dramatically ending as they struggled with new design regulations for 2022.
The 37-year-old has won at least one race in each of his previous 15 seasons in F1, and goes into Sunday's race at Zandvoort looking to extend that record.
"We're close and I hope that we can fight these guys tomorrow in the race," Hamilton said on Saturday.
"It's a difficult race to overtake as we've seen in the past, but we've got nothing to lose, we've got to give it everything tomorrow.
"If our single lap to race pace delta that we normally have transfers over tomorrow, then we could be in a good place, and then it's down to the strategy and those sorts of things.
"I don't think it's going to be overtaking on track necessarily, but I'm just going to keep my hopes up and we'll see what I do tomorrow."
