McLaren’s Lando Norris stormed to victory at the Dutch Grand Prix Sunday, a superb drive consigning home favourite Max Verstappen to his first-ever loss in front of his “Orange Army” fans.
The British driver claimed his second career chequered flag after winning in Miami in May, closing Verstappen’s lead over him in the world championship to 70 points, with the Dutchman coming second.
Despite raucous encouragement from a packed Zandvoort circuit, Verstappen could not extract enough from his Red Bull to compete with a recently upgraded McLaren that is beginning to look like the car to beat in Formula One.
“It feels amazing… The pace was very strong and the car was unbelievable today,” said Norris, who also secured a point for the fastest lap.
The start was critical. Questions have been asked of the starting ability of Norris, who has three times this season failed to convert pole position into a first lap lead.
And again Norris was sluggish off the line, allowing Verstappen to power around the outside to huge cheers from the crowd, who saw their man take a 0.9-second advantage into the second lap.
Buoyed by the fast start, Verstappen clocked the quickest lap in lap two, putting clear daylight between him and the McLaren of Norris.
But the McLaren had been the fastest car in the paddock all race weekend and Norris started slowly but surely eating into Verstappen’s lead.
By lap 17 out of 72, Norris was only a few tenths of a second behind Verstappen, the Dutchman complaining on his team radio of a lack of grip from his tyres.
‘I can’t go faster’
Norris passed him a lap later on the outside at turn one, Verstappen powerless to prevent the overtake and quickly falling further behind.
“I can’t go faster. The car is not responding to my inputs,” a desperate Verstappen told his engineers as Norris stretched his advantage to more than four seconds.
On lap 25, Verstappen decided enough was enough and he needed a new set of tyres.
Norris pitted the lap after, his team taking 0.6 seconds longer than the Red Bull for the pit stop.
Nevertheless, Norris emerged from the two stops five seconds ahead of his rival and promptly produced the fastest lap of the race on his new set of tyres.
By lap 40, Norris had extended the advantage to more than 10 seconds over the three-time champion and just had to stay out of trouble to take the chequered flag.
His eventual margin of victory was 22.896 seconds, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc holding off Norris’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to claim the third podium spot after a thrilling battle.
Red Bull’s struggling second driver Sergio Perez finished in sixth position, meaning the gap in the constructors’ championship also narrowed from 42 points to 30.
“I wouldn’t say a perfect race because of lap one again, but afterwards it was beautiful,” said Norris.
“I expected Max to start pushing and get a bit of a gap. And he never did. So from that point, I knew we were in with a good fight,” added Norris.
“But he seemed to just keep dropping off. And my pace was getting better. So it’s a nice feeling inside the car. And especially when I got past, you know, I could just get comfortable.”
The F1 circus now moves on to the famous Monza track in Italy next weekend, round 16 of 24 with everyone snapping at Verstappen’s heels.
Verstappen has not won a Grand Prix since Barcelona in June, his longest barren spell since 2020 and while it is premature to talk of panic stations at Red Bull, the Dutch weekend will have given some cause for concern.
“You always try to do better and we had a good start, we tried everything we could today, but throughout the race it was quite clear that we are not quick enough, so I tried to be second today,” said Verstappen.
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