Dominant Norris fights back to win Dutch GP

McLaren’s Lando Norris fought back to take a dominant victory in the Dutch Grand Prix despite losing the lead to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull at the start.

Norris, for whom starts and first laps have been a weakness in recent races, was passed almost immediately when he had too much wheel spin off the line.

But such was the pace in his McLaren that he re-passed Verstappen on lap 18, before the pit stops, and romped away into the distance.

Charles Leclerc took the final podium position, belying his pre-race pessimism, fending off the McLaren of Oscar Piastri for the final 27 laps.

Verstappen appeared to sense the way the race was going even while he was still leading.

The Dutchman, who has monopolised this event since it returned to the calendar in 2021, was complaining about a lack of grip from very early on in the race.

And his defence of the lead when Norris caught him was half-hearted, especially in the context of his normally ultra-robust defensive tactics, and the McLaren swept into the lead down the inside line at the first corner, Tarzan.

Once in front, Norris pulled away at around half a second a lap and there was nothing Verstappen could do to prevent losing his home race for the first time since its return after a 36-year absence.

Norris was in total control once in front and he crossed the line 22.8 seconds ahead of Verstappen for one of the most dominant wins of the season.

And he rubbed in his crushing form by setting the fastest lap on the final tour, taking it away from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton by just 0.067secs.

“Simply lovely,” Norris said cheekily over the radio, copying the phrase Verstappen used so many times in victories during his dominance of the past two years.

“It feels amazing,” Norris added. “I wouldn’t say a perfect race because of lap one again but it was beautiful, the car was very strong, I could push and get past Max and just go from there. Still tough but enjoyable.”

Verstappen said: “We had a good start so we tried everything we could today but throughout the race it was quite clear we were not quick enough so I tried to be second today.

“I know we have good starts and I was quite confident we would have another one. That was my race.”

Norris’ win, his first since his maiden victory in Miami in May and following the introduction of McLaren’s first car upgrade since that race in Florida, will come as a welcome tonic for a driver and team who have faced criticism for letting opportunities slip.

It cuts Verstappen’s championship lead to 70 points with nine races to go – a still formidable advantage but one which Norris, on this form, might just have a chance of overhauling.

In the constructors’ chase, McLaren are now just 31 points behind Red Bull in the quest for their first teams’ title for 26 years.

When Norris lost the lead off the line, there were echoes of the events in Spain, Hungary and Belgium, in all of which his victory chances were compromised by being passed on the first lap, either through a slow start or an error.

This time, there was nothing to worry about. Norris was easily able to stay with Verstappen in the early laps despite the difficulty of following at Zandvoort – an indication of a comfortable pace advantage.

And when Verstappen’s tyre started to go off after about 15 laps – he was complaining they were “numb” and had “no grip” – Norris moved in for the kill.

McLaren’s confidence in his pace was transparent on the pit wall, too, when Norris’ engineer Will Joseph said that Verstappen might try to under-cut him – stop earlier and regain the lead on fresh tyres – but they were not worried about it.

In the end, they did not have to worry. Norris was more than five seconds in front by the time Verstappen stopped for fresh tyres on lap 27, and McLaren were able to cover him with a stop on the following lap to enable their driver to continue to control the race from the front.

In the second part of the race, Verstappen briefly had to focus behind him rather than in front as the second McLaren of Piastri gave hints of a potential one-two.

The Australian had a slow start to the race, dropping from third to fourth at the start and spending the first stint stuck behind George Russell’s Mercedes.

McLaren ran Piastri on a long first stint to give him a tyre-life advantage in the second half of the race.

Piastri came out in fifth place, behind Norris, Verstappen and Leclerc and gained two places on Piastri and Russell with an earlier pit stop after tracking them in the first stint, having passed Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at the start.

Initially, Piastri showed pace that might have allowed him to catch Verstappen by the end of the race.

He soon picked off Russell but Piastri became stuck behind Leclerc’s Ferrari and his progress halted there as the Ferrari driver took a podium finish he did not think would be possible before the race.

“Very surprised,” Leclerc said. “I am not very often happy with a P3 but with today’s race we can be extremely happy with the job we have done on a difficult weekend for the team.

“In the race, we found some more pace, executed a perfect strategy, under-cutted two of our competitors and managed to keep them behind.”

Behind Piastri, the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz also showed strong form. The Spaniard moved up from 11th on the grid after a difficult weekend caused by a gearbox failure in the only dry session of the weekend before qualifying on Friday to catch and pass Red Bull’s Perez for fifth place.

Russell had been running ahead of both but dropped back to seventh with a second pit stop on to the soft tyres with 16 laps to go.

That dropped him behind Sainz and Perez and left him ahead of team-mate Hamilton, who had started 14th after qualifying 12th and then receiving a penalty for impeding Perez.

The final points positions were taken by Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, capitalising on a start that vaulted him from 10th on the grid to seventh on the first lap, and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.