Norris outpaces Antonelli for Dutch GP win

Lando Norris decisively won the final Dutch Grand Prix ahead of Kimi Antonelli in a strategic thriller that started with home favorite Max Verstappen crashing out heavily on the first lap.

Rain hit Circuit Zandvoort around 45 minutes before the race, and though the skies cleared in time for slicks to be used at the start, the circuit remained slippery in parts, especially through the final two corners.

Verstappen was cautious into the penultimate turn but was holding a narrow line entering the banked final corner when his car suddenly snapped from under him. His Red Bull Racing machine fired into the outside concrete barrier in a hail of carbon fiber, its left side completely destroyed, and he rebounded onto the circuit ahead of the field of charging cars.

His rivals miraculously avoided his stricken chassis as it came to rest on the inside of the turn. Verstappen radioed his team apologetically before climbing out of the car unhurt.

Gabriel Bortoleto made an almost identical error just seconds later, spinning his Audi but improbably managing to keep it out of the barrier – and even continue in the right direction after completing his pirouette.

Teammate Nico Hulkenberg, directly behind him, was faced with a wall of tire smoke knowing it was shrouding a car and was forced to pick a direction. He darted left and missed the sister car by mere inches.

The race was red flagged with Norris leading Antonelli, who had jumped to second when teammate George Russell had got a debilitating amount of wheelspin off the line. Another great start from the Italian got him down the inside of the first turn, where he guided Norris wide to take the lead of the race.

Norris didn’t have the pace to match Antonelli in the first stint but benefited from lapped cars balking the teenager shortly after the first pit stops, helping him to dip in and out of the 1s overtake mode margin and cling to the quicker Mercedes. It proved consequential after the second stops, when Antonelli found himself badly lacking grip on his second set of hard tires.

McLaren had already committed to playing the long game, leaving Norris out in the lead to build a seven-lap tire offset before opting for his own fresh hards. The pace difference was devastating, with a 5.8s gap all but zeroed within four laps.

Lewis Hamilton provided the opportunity. In the lead but yet to pit, the Ferrari was slow and in the way at Turn 1. Antonelli attempted to pass him down the inside only to find that route blocked, allowing Norris to cruise around the outside and take the place.

Antonelli passed the Ferrari in short order, but lacking pace, his victory bid was finished.

Back in the lead he lost after just one racing lap, Norris was untroubled on the way to an 11.5s victory.

“I knew I had probably one chance to really make it happen, and I made the most of it,” he said of the move. “Very, very happy.”

A virtual safety car for Esteban Ocon’s stopped Haas gave Antonelli a chance to swap his uninspiring hards for softs with 16 laps remaining in exchange for losing second place to teammate Russell, who found himself up to a fortunate second place despite a series of poor starts that had him running an uncompetitive fourth in the opening stint.

Russell attempted to convince the team that Antonelli should work “as a team” to defend a double podium if he were out of the victory fight, but the Italian’s pace was overwhelming on the softs, and Mercedes told him to yield the place with seven laps to go.

The Englishman argued that Antonelli wasn’t going to catch Norris but ultimately acquiesced, allowing the title leader through to finish second in tactics the Italian described as “too risky” on the cool-down lap.

“It was a very intense race,” he said. “Now as a team we need to find a little bit of time, because McLaren have done a huge step, so we’ve got to keep pushing.”

Russell was left to defend third place ahead of the fast-finishing Ferrari drivers, both of whom had newer soft tires to attack him on his aging hards. Remarkably, aided in part by a brief virtual safety car with two laps to go, Russell was inch-perfect in his defensive driving to rebuff the quicker cars to rescue an unlikely third place.

“Kimi was ahead of me anyway [before the stop], so he deserved to finish ahead,” he said. “It was the right decision, and I’m just happy to be standing on the podium.”

The result moved Russell to second in the standings but with an unchanged 59-point deficit to Antonelli.

Hamilton finished a frustrated fourth, having felt his team had wasted his strong pace in the second stint, when he wasn’t given team orders to pass teammate Charles Leclerc, who was on slower, older tires, and then was left out on aging rubber while Antonelli and Norris attempted to pass him.

“Great way of wasting time, guys. Good job,” he radioed at the time.

Leclerc finished fifth, just behind his teammate and a long way ahead of the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri, whose third place early in the race was thrown away by a slow pit stop and whose pace late in the race left him unable to recover.

Liam Lawson finished seventh in the sole remaining Red Bull Racing entry, replacing the injured Isack Hadjar.

Nico Hulkenberg finished eighth ahead of Fernando Alonso, who made a one-stop work to score two points for Aston Martin. Pierre Gasly scored the final point of the race in 10th.

Yuki Tsunoda beat teammate Arvid Lindblad in his comeback race, subbing for the elevated Lawson. Bortoleto finished 13th ahead of Franco Colapinto, Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz, who was penalized for locking up and hitting teammate Alex Albon late in the race.

Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Ocon, Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman joined Verstappen on the retirement list.

RESULTS