Norris dominates Dutch GP as champion Verstappen crashes out on lap one

Lando Norris claimed a dominant victory at the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday, crossing the line 11.5 seconds ahead of Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli at Zandvoort to record his second consecutive Formula 1 win. George Russell completed the podium for Mercedes, while home favourite Max Verstappen was eliminated on the very first lap after spinning into the barrier at the final corner.

Verstappen’s exit came as the field navigated a treacherous wet-dry surface — the result of rain falling just an hour before lights out — with the entire grid having elected to start on slick tyres. The Red Bull driver clipped the white line on the inside of the final corner, sending him into the barrier and scattering debris across the circuit. “Yeah that’s it — sorry!” he told his team over the radio. Gabriel Bortoleto also spun at the banking in the same sequence of events but escaped without damage.

The resulting red flag forced a second standing start, though not before Oliver Bearman suffered an engine failure on the formation lap. At the restart, Antonelli — on medium tyres compared to Norris’s softs — squeezed past the McLaren at Turn 1 to briefly lead, while title rival Russell lost third to Oscar Piastri at Turn 7.

Antonelli stretched his advantage to 2.2 seconds over Norris before the pit window opened, but a slow 5.4-second stop for Piastri dropped him behind Russell and ultimately handed Norris the initiative. Once all frontrunners had cycled through their hard-tyre stops — Charles Leclerc the exception, opting for mediums — Norris reeled in Antonelli and assumed control, a lead he never relinquished.

Further back, the race delivered more drama. Leclerc spent much of the afternoon pressuring Russell, who reported balance problems but used Zandvoort’s narrow layout to hold firm before eventually pitting. The Ferrari driver finally made his move on lap 34, edging past Piastri around the outside of Turn 3 to claim fourth. Lewis Hamilton then overtook Piastri for fifth on the following lap and closed rapidly on Leclerc, angling for team orders that never materialised — a situation Hamilton addressed with barely concealed frustration over the radio.

Yuki Tsunoda emerged from a frantic multi-car battle to secure a points finish, one of the more entertaining sub-plots in a race shaped largely by the chaos of the opening lap.

The result extends Norris’s momentum in the championship, with Verstappen’s retirement a costly blow to the Red Bull driver’s title ambitions.