Top News

Lando Norris managed to hold on and continue the six-year trend of every Dutch Grand Prix pole-sitter turning that start into victory, sealing the win on Sunday afternoon.

This marked Norris’s second win at Zandvoort and the 13th Grand Prix victory of the defending World Drivers’ Champion’s career.

The race began in dramatic fashion, with home favourite and time champion Max Verstappen crashing at the final corner onto the straight on the opening lap while trying to defend his seventh-place starting position.

The race was red-flagged for 30 minutes before resuming on lap four. World Drivers' Championship leader Kimi Antonelli once again showed he has mastered his starts, moving from P3 to P2 at the launch and then taking the lead from Norris at the restart.

The defending champion worked his way back to the front on the primary strategy. Most of the front-runners made their pit stops during the virtual safety car, which began on lap 54 after Esteban Ocon stopped at turn four.

Norris inherited the lead and, in the closing phase of the VSC, asked over the radio whether the team should have brought him in as well.

He then managed to stay ahead on older tyres to claim victory over Antonelli and George Russell.

Russell was instructed to allow Antonelli through on the final lap because the World Drivers’ Championship leader had fresher tyres. He pushed back against the call, believing Antonelli would be better placed to defend from Lewis Hamilton and help preserve their double podium.

“I mean, Kimi was ahead of me anyway, so he deserved to finish ahead. And of course, when you're in the race, you want to fight for every single position. But with the pace with a new tyre, we would've been overtaken anyway.”

In the end, Russell was able to make it work, and Antonelli increased his points advantage over Russell and Hamilton with the quicker Mercedes.

Russell also kept Hamilton engaged in his fight with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, who eventually finished fifth.

Russell and Hamilton finishing P2 and P3 means Russell has now drawn level with Hamilton for second in the standings after a difficult slide through the summer.

Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 points-scoring positions.

Norris does not view this win as the definite beginning of a late championship charge and is instead approaching the season one race at a time.

“I mean, it sounds boring, but one race at a time,” Norris told F1TV. “I know a lot of people say it now, but it's the truth of it. There's no point thinking that far ahead. I need to concentrate now on having a nice little break. Obviously, two great weekends, but yeah, we just need to reset, to learn as much as we can. I think there's still plenty of things we can do better, and we need to do better if we want to fight for a championship.”