Norris looking for 'some magic' to beat Piastri

Lando Norris has won three out of the past four F1 races

Dutch Grand Prix

Venue: Zandvoort Date: 31 August Race start: 14:00 BST on Sunday

Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app

Lando Norris said he would be looking for some "magic" to try to beat McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to victory in Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix.

Piastri pipped Norris to pole position by just 0.012 seconds on Saturday, and the Australian heads Norris by nine points in the championship even though the Briton has won three of the past four races.

Overtaking is difficult around the twisty and narrow Zandvoort circuit and Norris is concerned about his prospects of winning the race.

"It's going to take some magic, some good strategy or incredible tyre saving or something," Norris said.

"But it's normally pretty difficult to overtake in the first place. It's even harder to do that behind your team-mate. So, I'll see what I can dream of tonight."

Norris won the last race in Hungary despite a bad start that dropped him to fifth place on the first lap by switching to a one-stop strategy.

Piastri, who has won six races so far this season to Norris' five, was unable to pass him despite closing on him on fresher tyres at the end of the race.

But Norris was not optimistic of his chances of a repeat in the Netherlands.

"Just a bummer (not to be on pole)," he said, "but not a lot I can do now. My lap was still pretty good, 0.01secs is such a small margin. It is frustrating mainly because it is a track that is pretty much impossible to overtake on, so a lot of my chances are now gone."

Piastri had lagged behind Norris all weekend through the practice sessions, but steady improvement and working out how to go faster allowed him to sneak an edge when it mattered.

"You just keep chipping away," he said. "I just improved the parts where I was already not bad and made up the difference that way."

Rain and strategy in the mix

There is the potential of wet weather in the race, and both McLaren drivers are free to battle without team orders.

That includes the possibility to choose their own strategy in an attempt to beat their team-mate, as Norris did ultimately successfully in Hungary.

His switch to a one-stop in Budapest was initially aimed at ensuring he beat Mercedes' George Russell to a podium finish, but the strategy opened up for him and he was able to use it to win the race.

Team principal Andrea Stella said that Piastri had not had any issues with the way Hungary played out and that both drivers were happy to carry on with this approach.

"Both drivers, Oscar included, accepted that there's a degree of variability in racing," Stella said. "There's a level of variation of scenarios that can realise and that not necessarily are under your control."

And the Italian emphasised that they could not rule out Red Bull's Max Verstappen in third place affecting their race. A good start from the Dutchman could easily see him pass at least one of the McLaren drivers in the freestyle of the first lap.

Stella said: "First thing we have to do in the interest of the team and in the interest of Lando and Oscar is to make sure that we beat Max, who is not very far, he's 0.2secs away from us.

"Based on the difficulties in overtaking and the fact that there could be also some weather, first of all we have to make sure that we get the best result for the team with Lando and Oscar finishing possibly in the order that the car performance would say, and at the moment we can see that McLaren is the fastest car.

"When it comes to the options from a strategic point of view in between our two drivers, we do have some rules for that.

"I'm not going to share what rules they are but whatever you have seen so far in terms of how the strategy has been utilised, it's always been within our rules.

"So it's perfectly right for instance that there are deviations in terms of strategy.

"Here the strategy is not far between a one and a two-stop, so I think it will be once again interesting, not only between the two McLaren drivers but also with the other drivers.

"Max, for instance, he has a new (set of) soft (tyres) that he saved from qualifying and it could be a pretty powerful weapon if you can deploy this weapon strategically at the right time."

A better day for Hamilton

This is the highest Lewis Hamilton has qualified since the Austrian Grand Prix where he started fourth

Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton had an improved weekend after his struggles in Hungary, where he said he was "just useless" after he qualified 12th when team-mate Charles Leclerc was on pole position.

Leclerc and Hamilton line up sixth and seventh, with the impressive Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bull fourth alongside Verstappen and Russell fifth.

Hamilton had led Leclerc all weekend through practice but lost out by just 0.05secs in qualifying.

Hamilton said: "I tried to have a slightly different approach to the weekend. Some tweaks before I even got here and before the weekend. It's been a lot smoother, the car was a bit unpredictable yesterday but we have made progress this weekend so I am grateful for that.

"Definitely encouraging to have a good result on my side of the garage so I'm glad we're there or thereabouts but we're not where we want to be. 0.7secs off on a track like this is a huge amount. We have to try to understand that because Charles was P1 last time.

"I've been trying to gain more and more confidence and that is what's happened.

"It feels like it's been one of the most solid days of the year and that's been to do with some of the improvements in process, my approach and it's a little calmer overall.

"The team did a great job through qualifying but we just need more performance from somewhere. I hope race pace will be a bit better and we can try and move forwards."