McLaren’s Lando Norris cruised to his second career victory after producing a dominant performance at Formula 1’s Dutch Grand Prix
Having already upstaged home favourite Max Verstappen in qualifying, Norris came from behind in the early stages of the 72-lap contest to pass the Red Bull Racing driver before romping clear.
Verstappen made the better start from the inside of the front row to beat polesitter Norris into the first corner and initially opened up more than a one-second lead. But after closing back in, Norris dived up the inside into turn one to snatch the lead at the beginning of lap 18.
Norris remained ahead for 11 laps before heading to the pits, emerging still in front of Verstappen who had pitted one lap earlier, and he controlled proceedings from there to eventually take the chequered flag a huge 20 seconds clear of his rival who he now trails by a slightly reduced margin of 70 points in the championship.
Running fourth early on and then being the last of the leading runners to pit, Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri briefly led before rejoining behind Mercedes driver George Russell in fifth. Charles Leclerc made an earlier stop work to undercut the pair into third, where he remained until the finish, having resisted pressure from Piastri who had fought his way by Russell just past the halfway stage before closing in on the Ferrari driver.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez also passed Russell to sixth while Lewis Hamilton, who was handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Perez in qualifying, recovered from 15th to eighth and was the final finisher on the lead lap.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly ran seventh early before eventually coming home ninth, one place ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso who denied Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg a points finish.
RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was 12th ahead of Aston’s Lance Stroll and Williams racer Alex Albon, the latter disqualified from qualifying for a floor infringements despite intially making it to Q3. Albon’s team-mate Logan Sargeant bounced back from a fiery free practice crash to finish 16th, once place behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
RB’s Yuki Tsunoda was 17th ahead of Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Sauber duo Valtteri Bottas and Gaunyu Zhou.
Featured image credit: F1 on X
