Lando Norris earned his second Formula 1 victory at the Dutch Grand Prix with an excellent race performance to beat Max Verstappen at his home race.
Despite losing the lead into the first corner, Norris held his nerve and passed Verstappen to take back P1. Lando immediately started to build a break over the Red Bull to ensure he had a considerable gap in hand – crossing the finishing line with a 22.9-second lead. This ensured that, with the fastest lap, Norris managed to reduce Verstappen’s championship lead to 70 points.
The pressure had been on Norris to preserve the lead into the first corner, having been unable to do so from pole at both Barcelona and Hungary, but the McLaren driver ended up with too much wheelspin into the first corner and lost ground to Verstappen into Turn 1.
Verstappen then proceeded to build up a DRS fightback through immediately putting over a second on Norris, which grew to 1.5 seconds over the next few laps to keep Norris at bay.
However, the Red Bull driver was unable to extend his lead any further, as Norris gamely hung on just outside of the DRS margin and Verstappen struggled with turn-in on the slower corners. After the opening 15 laps, Norris then snapped out of his early tyre management to close in on Verstappen, although his attempt with DRS into Turn 1 at the start of lap 17 was fended off.
His assault on the next lap was not, however, and proceeded to gather a huge amount of momentum through the banked Turn 14 to cruise past Verstappen down the inside.
Soon after, Norris shook Verstappen off and started to gap his championship rival by a rate of over half a second per lap. Although Verstappen pitted a lap earlier, Norris retained plenty of gap in hand and disappeared down the road in a crushing – and Verstappen-like – display of dominance.
Charles Leclerc completed the top three after holding off a lengthy spell of pressure from Oscar Piastri, having undercut the McLaren driver and George Russell during the pitstops.
The Ferrari driver dealt with traffic around him after his stop to ensure he broke free of Russell and, despite Piastri’s best efforts, Leclerc retained enough top speed into Turn 1 to keep Piastri at bay.
Piastri had gone longer into the race to claim a nine-lap offset on the hard tyre for the second stage; although he caught and passed Russell with relative ease, Leclerc proved a much tougher nut to crack.
Carlos Sainz recovered from his Q2 exit to finish fifth with a series of well-judged overtakes, crucially putting a move on Sergio Perez despite the Red Bull driver’s robust defence to move up to sixth.
This was set to become fifth as he caught Russell, but the Mercedes pitted for a soft-tyre gamble towards the end of the race. This did not entirely work out, as Russell ran out of time – and, in reality, lacked the pace – to catch Perez to lose track position.
Lewis Hamilton also put in a solid recovery drive to collect eighth, after also dropping out in Q2 and taking a grid penalty for impeding Perez. Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso completed the top ten, the latter relegating Nico Hulkenberg from the points.
So a well deserved second victory for Lando Norris. This was an impressive result for Lando following his debut win in Miami. He held his nerve despite a wheel spinning start. Caught and passed Max Verstappen. Pulled away with superior race pace and victory plus fastest lap is a bonus.
Dutch Grand Prix, race results:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:30:45.519
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull +22.896s
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +25.439s
4 Oscar Piastri McLaren +27.337s
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +32.137s
6 Sergio Perez Red Bull +39.542s
7 George Russell Mercedes +44.617s
8 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +49.599s
9 Pierre Gasly Alpine +1 lap
10 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +1 lap
11 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +1 lap
12 Daniel Ricciardo RB +1 lap
13 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1 lap
14 Alexander Albon Williams +1 lap
15 Esteban Ocon Alpine +1 lap
16 Logan Sargeant Williams +1 lap
17 Yuki Tsunoda RB +1 lap
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas +1 lap
19 Valtteri Bottas Sauber +2 laps
20 Zhou Guanyu Sauber +2 laps
McLaren driver Lando Norris charged to a statement victory during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, overhauling Max Verstappen after his Red Bull rival moved ahead at the start – and denying the Dutchman what would have been a fourth-straight home triumph.
Norris lined up on pole position for Sunday’s race but his hopes of converting it into the win took a hit when Verstappen jumped him off the line and slotted ahead at the first corner, before moving clear and breaking free of the DRS window.
However, Norris gathered himself to mount a fight back as the race developed, finding another level of pace – while Verstappen battled a mid-stint lack of grip – to close back in on the three-time world champion and reclaim a lead he would not relinquish.
Norris only extended his advantage before and after the front-runners’ sole pit stops of the day, eventually taking the chequered flag some 20 seconds clear of Verstappen to add to his Miami win from earlier this season and cut the latter’s championship lead.
Charles Leclerc delivered a similarly impressive drive, climbing from sixth to third to salvage a podium on what has been a challenging weekend for Ferrari, with Oscar Piastri having to settle for fourth in the other McLaren after extending his opening stint and losing track position.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-fights-back-against-verstappen-to-end-home-heros-run-of-dutch-gp-wins.3IPKJnhPnBEjWGAfrGeZQo
Lando Norris is still not looking ahead to potentially winning the Formula 1 title this season and labelled it “stupid” to aim for the crown despite a dominant display at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver once again struggled off the line from pole position and fell behind reigning champion and local favourite Max Verstappen into the first corner.
However, Norris recovered in style, keeping tabs on Verstappen before passing the Red Bull with ease on lap 18, never looking back as he stormed to a comfortable win.
He still had enough in his used hard tyres to set the fastest lap on his final tour, the winning margin of 22.896 seconds the biggest in a race not won by Verstappen since Lewis Hamilton’s impressive victory at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“I’ve been fighting for the championship since the first race of the year. There’s no sudden decision now,” he said.
“I need to do better. I’ve been working hard the whole year and I’m still 70 points behind Max. So it’s pretty stupid to think of anything at the minute. I just take one race at a time and just keep doing what I’m doing now because there’s no point in thinking ahead and thinking of the rest.
“I don’t care about it at the minute. I’m just… yeah, focused on one race at a time, so it’s not a question that I need to get asked every single weekend.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norris-says-talk-of-a-f1-title-challenge-is-stupid/10647787/
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has refused to rule out McLaren winning both Formula 1 titles after Max Verstappen’s 23-second defeat to Lando Norris at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Verstappen had returned from F1’s mid-season summer break with a 78-point lead over Norris, while Red Bull was 42 in front of McLaren in the constructors’ standings.
The latter gap had already been closing steadily due to Sergio Perez’s poor performances in the other RB20 – and McLaren remains on course to catch Red Bull around Singapore after Norris’s win on Sunday at Zandvoort – but the size of Verstappen’s latest defeat has set alarm bells ringing in the Red Bull camp about his chances of securing a fourth straight world title.
Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com after the “alarming result” at the Dutch GP, Marko said: “If you look at his fastest lap – from Lando – in his very last lap without DRS, [he did a] 1m13.8.
“So, as Max said before the summer break, the team has to work harder and must find improvements because like that his championship is in threat.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/marko-alarming-norris-victory-over-verstappen-proves-threat-to-both-f1-titles/10647737/
George Russell says he was “left scratching his head” after going backwards in the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver qualified in fourth place and had looked strong all weekend going into Sunday’s race but struggled for pace and finished seventh – one spot ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Russell, 26, who came into this weekend having been denied victory in the Belgian Grand Prix after his car was disqualified for being underweight, said he was perplexed to be so far adrift.
“We just had no pace,” the Briton lamented. “I was just dropping like a stone, especially quite surprised versus Ferrari. We were expecting to be comfortably ahead of them, and Charles [Leclerc] was quicker, Carlos [Sainz] was catching me. Clearly we got something wrong with the tyres.
“After the first couple of laps I thought we were on course for a podium here, I knew the overtaking was going to be difficult. I was really shocked at how fast McLaren were.
“Lando [Norris] just looked so comfortable out there, super impressive to see, but we’ve had six really strong races and then suddenly we’ve finished almost a minute behind the win today, so you don’t lose all of that performance overnight.
“Yesterday we qualified fourth and clearly didn’t get something right today. Honestly right now I’m still scratching my head. It was very tough conditions, you know, this wind with the long corners. Right now I don’t have the answers.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/russell-baffled-after-dropping-like-a-stone-in-dutch-gp/10647774/
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has admitted that he simply “tried to be second” in the Dutch Grand Prix when it became clear that McLaren rival Lando Norris boasted more raw speed.
Verstappen initially sent the home fans wild by jumping ahead of pole-sitter Norris when the race got under way, after which he built a solid lead and crucially moved out of the DRS window.
However, Norris fought back with an impressive turn of speed and, at the start of Lap 18, used the overtaking aid along the start/finish straight to reclaim the lead from Verstappen into Turn 1.
From there, Norris never looked back, moving further and further ahead of Verstappen in what was a one-stop race for the front-runners to eventually finish 22.8 seconds clear.
Reflecting on finishing P2, and not being able to add to his home wins in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Verstappen commented: “You always try to do better.
“We had a good start, we tried everything we could today, but throughout the race I think it was quite clear that we’re not quick enough, so I tried to be second.”
“Then I just tried to do my own race, that was my race, and that was second today.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/were-not-quick-enough-verstappen-eager-for-red-bull-gains-after-losing-out.5QQWqXkykuYD3i9r6E31Dg