– The last Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort was intense: crash by Max Verstappen (Red Bull), a thrilling duel for the win – and controversies on the radio at Ferrari and Mercedes. The victory went to Lando Norris (McLaren) after 72 action-packed and entertaining laps, who had recently already won at the Hungaroring.
Read more Max Verstappen admits: I simply accelerated too early before the crash!
Norris, who started from pole position, engaged in a long-distance duel with Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), who seemed to have the better cards at times. But in the last third of the race, the Grand Prix turned, and Norris secured the decisive lead with an impressive overtaking maneuver in turn 1.
Antonelli, who was obviously struggling with balance, changed tires again under VSC yellow, temporarily fell behind teammate George Russell – and was then waved past by team orders. A decision by Mercedes management that could cause discussions in hindsight.
Russell defended himself bravely in the last laps against the Ferraris equipped with fresher tires and finished third – supported by a late VSC phase and a last-minute duel between the two Ferrari stars. They had their own team order dispute in Zandvoort. Ultimately, Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and Charles Leclerc fifth.
Sixth place went to Oscar Piastri (McLaren), ahead of Liam Lawson (Red Bull), Nico Hülkenberg (Audi), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), and Pierre Gasly (Alpine).
Local hero Verstappen, meanwhile, had a short day at work: on a track still partly wet at first, he made one of his rare driving errors at the end of the first lap, which ended in a spectacular crash.
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Results: Dutch GP race
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Rain before the start: How did the first lap go?
The race in Zandvoort started after rain showers on a largely dry track. McLaren and Mercedes started on medium tires, Ferrari and Red Bull on soft tires. And there was a different starting procedure: because there were still some wet spots at 3:00 PM, the warm-up lap was driven behind the safety car for safety reasons – and then the race started from a standing start.
Polesitter Norris won the start confidently. Russell, who stood next to him in the first row, had a poor getaway, had to defend his line against Piastri – and thus opened the left side of the track, where Antonelli passed and took second place.
Behind them, Leclerc gained two positions and came out of the first lap in fourth, ahead of Piastri (whose actually good start was cut off by Russell) and Hamilton. Incidentally, Hamilton had a skirmish with Verstappen in the first meters, pushing him left onto the grass.
Verstappen crash: What were the first reactions?
For the local hero, the initially last home Grand Prix was over after less than one lap. Verstappen was in seventh place ahead of Lawson when he slid wide inside in the high-speed final corner, countersteered sharply – and crashed at high speed first to the left and then to the right. The Red Bull star was very lucky not to be hit by a car behind him.
“It just caught me,” says Verstappen. “It was still quite wet in the corner, and when I saw a dry patch coming up, I thought: ‘Okay, now you can get on the gas.’ That clearly didn’t work. I was probably on the gas too early. It was a hard impact, but I’ve had worse.”
A few meters further back, almost simultaneously, a very similar scene played out, as Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) also spun a spectacular 360-degree turn in the last corner. But Bortoleto did not crash and was able to continue. And teammate Nico Hülkenberg was very lucky not to impale the Brazilian in the complete blind flight of tire smoke.
In the chaos around Verstappen and Bortoleto, some hair-raising scenes occurred that could have ended differently. Alexander Albon (Williams) was annoyed with Esteban Ocon (Haas), for example: “Sorry, but what Esteban did is crazy. He overtook in the middle of the crash!”
Restart: How did Russell fall back to fourth place?
Because tire changes were allowed during the red phase, the race restarted with reshuffled cards: Norris switched to soft tires, the Mercedes drivers stayed on medium, Leclerc stayed on soft, Piastri even switched to hard, and Hamilton also stayed on soft.
The restart was from a standing start, but only after a second formation lap. Because on the first formation lap, Oliver Bearman (Haas) stopped between turns 10 and 11 with suspected engine damage. For the Brit, Zandvoort was over.
The winner of the second start was Antonelli, who got off the line well and was able to snatch the lead from Norris. Behind him, Russell initially got away well but then briefly got into trouble, had to let Piastri through first and then defend against Leclerc before the field sorted itself out again.
A loss of position that was anything but ideal for Russell, because with the hard tires Piastri could not keep up with the pace of the two leaders. By lap 8, a three-second gap had already opened between Norris and Piastri. “Everything is going perfectly for Antonelli now,” noted Formula 1 expert Mathias Lauda in the live commentary on ServusTV.
After 16 laps, Norris reported an intermediate status on the radio: he was driving “pace zero,” meaning full throttle – probably because his soft tires were starting to degrade. His gap to Antonelli was now 1.7 seconds. So still within a manageable range, but with supposedly faster tires.
At about the same time, Piastri also gave a status update: his hard tire was “okay, but not better than the medium.” Although with the advantage that it should last longer on paper.
Pit stops: How did Norris catch up to Antonelli again?
At the end of lap 17, Russell pitted and switched from medium to hard. The Mercedes driver probably sought the undercut and fell back to ninth place, between Hülkenberg and Tsunoda, and thus into traffic.
A lap later, surprisingly early due to the hard tire, Piastri switched from hard to hard. But the McLaren driver lost the undercut and position to Russell. “We actually wanted to go through to the end,” explains the Australian, “but it quickly became clear that the hard wasn’t much better. We tried, but realized it wouldn’t work.”
Read more Formula 1 live ticker: Norris wins, Verstappen crashes!
On lap 22, Antonelli (medium to hard), Norris (soft to hard), Leclerc (soft to medium), and Lawson (soft to medium) pitted simultaneously. This temporarily handed Hamilton the lead in the Grand Prix, nine seconds ahead of Antonelli, who in turn now had more than a three-second buffer over Norris.
Hamilton pitted on lap 25. He switched from soft to hard and returned to the track in sixth place behind Leclerc. His gap to his teammate was now seven seconds, but he had tires that were four laps fresher.
At the front, the duel between Antonelli and Norris intensified. From three seconds after the pit stop, the gap had shrunk to only 0.9 seconds by lap 28. And that, even though both had the same tires and they were the same age.
Norris even reduced the gap to half a second but could never mount a serious attack. From about lap 35, the distance grew again, and by lap 36, the reigning world champion had even fallen out of the ominous second.
On lap 34, a real overtaking maneuver took place further back: Leclerc, on twelve-lap-old mediums, passed Piastri, on fifteen-lap-old hards, before the steep corner. And from behind, Hamilton had caught up to the two, who a lap later could accelerate past Piastri at the start/finish straight.
Second series of pit stops: Why did Hamilton get so angry?
On lap 41, Mercedes executed a “double-stack”: first Antonelli, then Russell in the pits. Both took hard tires for the last stint. Meanwhile, Norris took the lead, 10.2 seconds ahead of Leclerc and 11.0 seconds ahead of Hamilton. Hamilton radioed at this phase: “I’m faster than Charles. My tires are better.”
Then another controversy: Ferrari called Leclerc into the pits to solve a problem – but Leclerc stayed out on his own because it had been agreed earlier that he would stop two laps after Russell. The ready Ferrari crew initially rolled the tire set back in. Hamilton was now at 180: “We’re just losing time!”
Leclerc then pitted on lap 43 and lost 3.5 seconds due to a not perfect pit stop. Hamilton was still furious and couldn’t resist a cynical radio message: “Great way to waste time. Good job.”
Antonelli vs. Norris: How did the duel for the win unfold?
On lap 47, the leader pitted: Norris took a set of hard tires for the last stint but now had more than five seconds deficit to Antonelli – but with tires seven laps fresher.
And that showed effect: Antonelli was not even close to Hamilton when Norris caught up to the Mercedes on lap 52 (of 72). Antonelli was advised from the command post to take the agreed line in turn 10. But the Italian radioed back: “I can’t do that, I have no rear tires.” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff later analyzed on ServusTV: “We simply ran out of pace on the hard tire.”
Then one of the scenes of the race: Hamilton again did not pit at the end of lap 53, and a three-way fight developed. When braking for the first corner, Antonelli moved inside to attack Hamilton – and Norris passed the Mercedes on the outside, while Hamilton initially held first place.
A few corners later, Norris and Antonelli were through, and Hamilton had a bit of racing luck on his side: because Esteban Ocon (Haas) rolled out, the race director activated the virtual safety car (VSC) – and Hamilton got his tire change at almost half price. Interestingly, Ferrari made a “double-stack” out of it and also fitted fresh tires on Leclerc again.
A lap later, still under VSC, Mercedes responded to Antonelli’s complaints about his tire set and brought the Italian in again. This allowed Russell to slip back into second place, now 6.2 seconds behind Norris and 6.2 seconds ahead of Antonelli.
Antonelli quickly caught up to Russell with his tire advantage, and it was only a duel for second place. Because at the front, Norris drove a solid pace despite more worn tires, so he no longer had to fear Antonelli in the long-distance duel.
On lap 66, Mercedes ordered the position swap on the radio, which Russell also executed. But not without asking: “Is Kimi racing for the win?” Not entirely unjustified, considering Norris had already pulled more than eleven seconds ahead at that point. And Russell now also had Hamilton with fresher tires and no safety buffer behind him.
Mathias Lauda wondered in the ServusTV broadcast: “If I were Russell, I wouldn’t know how to handle it either. I think many drivers wouldn’t have given way.”
Russell takes the position swap calmly in hindsight: “Kimi was ahead of me anyway. He deserved to finish ahead of me. […] He would have overtaken me anyway, so it was the right decision.” To which Antonelli responded: “George was a great team player.”
Wolff can’t understand the excitement of some observers anyway: “We didn’t even have to switch Kimi. We had a free stop with him to improve the overall result. George was where he was anyway,” he says in an interview with ServusTV. “It sometimes sounds harsh, but that’s exactly how we discussed it in the morning. […] And that’s why we restored the positions as they were before.”
In the final phase, Russell probably saved third place with another VSC (due to debris after a collision between the Williams drivers). Hamilton caught up but it was not enough for an overtaking maneuver. Instead, Leclerc closed in from behind and even risked an attack on the last lap. This did little to improve the mood at Ferrari – but ultimately remained fruitless.
Formula 1 calendar 2026: What’s next?
Zandvoort was the first race weekend after the four-week summer break of Formula 1 and the twelfth of currently 23 planned stops on the 2026 Formula 1 calendar. Before the championship leaves Europe, the Italian Grand Prix in Monza on September 6 and the (new) Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid on September 13 are still on the program.
Fans can follow the usual Formula 1 livestream on Sunday evening on the YouTube channel of Formel1.de. With a summary of the events and analyses far beyond the end of the TV broadcasts. After the summer break, host Kevin Scheuren presents the streams again with the regular team including editor-in-chief Christian Nimmervoll as expert.
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The provisional start time of the livestream is set for 9:00 PM CEST.
