There were surely some moments of sheer dread for Lando Norris in the opening seconds of the Dutch Grand Prix as once more his pole position advantage slipped away when the lights went out. Norris would be forgiven for shuddering with an icy chill familiar from the North Sea winds that have battered the dunes of Zandvoort this weekend as Max Verstappen powered past him. Yet he was unperturbed, held his nerve and with a dominant win duly applied the heat to the Dutchman that the world champion has not experienced in years.
Having kept his head down after losing the lead into turn one, Norris regrouped and displayed the composure and maturity required for a world championship contender. Having bided his time he came back at Verstappen and, putting the pace advantage of his McLaren to use, breezed back into the lead. The victory that followed was a masterclass of precision and pace.
He was all but untouchable, winning by a country mile of 22.8sec from the world champion, who is used to doling out such punishment but has not been on the receiving end of such a licking since 2021.
Most important for Norris and F1, the win has breathed new life into the world championship. Verstappen still holds the whip hand but Norris has closed the gap to 70 points, with nine races remaining. The task is immense but on this showing McLaren have the machinery to mount an attack if they and Norris can deliver in future.
The gap may seem insurmountable but what transpired in the Netherlands proves it is feasible. Once Norris had the lead he was able to pound out lap after lap of such overwhelming superiority that at some points he was more than half a second a lap up on Verstappen. In the picturesque circuit by the coast were 105,000 fans, predominantly in support of their world champion. The raucous cheers echoed when Verstappen took the lead but were silenced on lap 18 when Norris took it back.
Hopes of a comeback for their man were given equally short shrift, as Norris left Verstappen behind. The laps are short at Zandvoort but each will have felt like an age for the world champion as he trawled round watching the rear of Norris’s car disappear.
Norris was imperious but McLaren must also take credit. Coming soon after their one-two in Hungary it was another demonstration of how strong their car is across a range of tracks. They had brought their first major swathe of upgrades since the Miami GP and just as they had proved superlative in Florida, the latest developments were once more a tangible step forward – no little achievement given other teams have deployed upgrades that have proved ineffective or even detrimental.
Verstappen won seven races in the opening 10 meetings this season, as it was all but written off as another cakewalk for the world champion, before he and his team found the world turned upside down. McLaren are now only 30 points behind Red Bull and hungrily eyeing their first constructors’ title since 1998.
Red Bull in turn will retire to lick their wounds and consider their task ahead. Verstappen has not won for five races since the Spanish GP. They had brought a less than impressive high-downforce upgrade to Hungary to address circuits such as Zandvoort which are their achilles heel but McLaren surely have the edge on their rivals overall.
Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, referred to the race as “damage limitation” but Verstappen has been open in demanding more performance and was subdued and disappointed at their form in Zandvoort and bemoaned his overall pace. “We tried everything we could today but I think it was quite clear we were not quick enough,” he said.
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Norris knew it was not quite flawless and, for all that it was a magnificent victory, question marks will remain over those starts. “I wouldn’t say a perfect race because of lap one again,” he said. “But afterwards it was beautiful. The pace was very strong, the car was unbelievable today.”
Fluffing the start had been the subject of intense speculation around Norris since he claimed a brilliant pole on Saturday, given his last two poles in Spain and Hungary were left unconverted after poor getaways. The run to turn one at Zandvoort is very short yet Norris was once more found wanting. The two rivals launched identically quickly but in those crucial bare seconds of post‑start getaway Verstappen was gone as Norris caught some wheelspin.
Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, said the team would look into why both their cars could not match their rivals in those key moments, while Norris, who is self-admittedly very critical of himself, a glass half-empty character, will doubtless apply a rigorous appraisal of those decisive seconds at the opening but he can also take pleasure in how he dealt with the aftermath: it was an exhibition, a statement of intent, from a potential world champion. Those are the moments Norris should take away from his triumph in the dunes.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third, with his teammate Carlos Sainz fifth. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was in fourth but Mercedes struggled. Lewis Hamilton did well to come back from 14th to claim eighth but George Russell dropped from fourth to seventh.
Sergio Pérez was sixth for Red Bull, Pierre Gasly ninth for Alpine and Fernando Alonso 10th for Aston Martin.
