2025 Dutch Grand Prix – Saturday
Zandvoort, 30 August 2025 – KICK Sauber F1 Team was involved in a fierce midfield battle in qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix. With conditions dry but gusty, Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg pushed their C45s to claim their spot on the grid for tomorrow’s race: Gabriel qualified to Q2, eventually setting the 13th fastest time of the session, while team-mate Nico will line up in 17th place.
As drivers and crew now prepare for tomorrow’s showpiece event, the focus will be on strategy and maximising opportunity to try and extend the team’s points-scoring streak for a seventh consecutive round.
Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal: "Although rain stayed away for qualifying, the changing wind direction provided an additional challenge for the drivers, making it difficult to string a lap together. In Q1, Gabi managed P15 – he was not entirely happy with the car, but it was a good enough time to put him through to Q2. Nico, on the other hand, ended up just 0.15s short of progressing in what was, again, a very close midfield battle. Gabi ultimately progressed to P13, with a small moment in turn nine affecting an otherwise strong lap. He set an identical time to Tsunoda and missed out on Q3 by only 0.05 seconds. Looking ahead to Sunday, the field remains very close. Zandvoort is not an easy track for overtakes, but as we have shown in previous rounds, we are increasingly capable of making up ground in a race."
Nico Hulkenberg (car number 27):
FP3: 16th / 1:10.599 (24 laps)
Q1: 17th / 1:10.195 (9 laps)
“It was incredibly close out there – just eight tenths covering the top 18 – so missing out by a tenth is frustrating, but that’s how brutal qualifying can be. It came ultimately down to a couple of corners where we didn’t quite make it. There’s always something you want to improve, but you work with what you’ve got and focus on making the most of it.
“Looking ahead, overtaking around here is going to be tough – probably even harder than it was in Hungary. Track position will be key, and we may not be looking quite as strong on pure pace. We’ll look at all our options now strategy-wise and see how we can recover.”
Gabriel Bortoleto (car number 5):
FP3: 13th / 1:10.361 (21 laps)
Q1: 1:10.037 (6 laps)
Q2: 13th / 1:09.622 (6 laps)
"Qualifying has been a bit though today. I bottomed out a couple of times in Q1, which cost me some time, and the conditions were rather unstable overall. After Q1, I asked the team to check the floor and make some adjustments within the parameters, but even with that, the lap in Q2 just wasn’t enough to get me into Q3. On top of it, I caught some dirty air from Yuki [Tsunoda] in the middle sector on my last attempt, which didn’t help, and I lost a bit of time compared to my earlier push. I think Q3 could have been possible if everything had gone perfectly, but that wasn’t the case. Still, tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll focus on making the most of the opportunities we'll get in the race. Our race pace was decent yesterday, so if we stick to our plan and execute well, we might gain some positions and climb through the field."