ZANDVOORT, Netherlands — Lando Norris can’t seem to get off to a good start. This time, that didn’t stop him from beating Max Verstappen.
Norris started on pole position but was slow on the start — a persistent problem for him — allowing Bull Driver Verstappen took the lead.
Norris closed the gap and passed Verstappen at the opening corner on the 18th lap with 72 laps to go and was then on his way to his second career win and McLaren the team’s third this year.
“After I got out of the first corner and came out of the finish line, I was actually surprisingly calm,” Norris said. “Maybe because I’m used to going backwards at the start, I was really prepared for that. I was really calm and just like, ‘Okay, what can I do now?’”
Verstappen was beaten for the first time on home soil and saw his lead over Norris shrink from 78 points to 70 with nine races remaining.
It was Norris’ fourth pole position win of his career, but his first from pole position. Verstappen broke away but Norris pulled him back when Verstappen began complaining about a lack of grip on his tyres. Norris eventually retook the lead on the inside of the ‘Tarzan’ banked corner. Norris then methodically extended his lead to almost 23 seconds at the flag, creating a gap in case of a safety car restart, but that never happened.
After losing the lead at the start, “I expected Max to start accelerating and create a little gap but he didn’t,” said Norris.
“So from that point on I knew we were going to have a good fight. But he just seemed to keep dropping behind and my pace kept getting better. It felt great in the car and especially when I got past, I could relax.”
Norris has defended himself as “still up there” with the best starters F1 on Saturday. After winning on Sunday, he suggested there may have been an “underlying issue” causing wheelspin on the dominant McLaren car, as teammate Oscar Piastri also lost a position at the start.
In every other stage of the race, Norris and McLaren clearly had the fastest car after McLaren’s latest upgrades, suggesting an increasingly competitive title battle with Verstappen in the final nine races of the season after the Dutchman has left the rest in the dust in 2022 and 2023.
Verstappen finished second and of Ferrari Charles Leclerc finished third after beating Piastri.
Norris is the first McLaren driver to win in the Netherlands since Niki Lauda in 1985, and Verstappen is without a win in five races, his longest winless streak since 2020.
“I think it was clear we weren’t quick enough, so today I tried to get second place,” said Verstappen.
He believes “something has happened recently with the car” that Red Bull need to find a solution to address the twin problems of slow speed and more-than-expected tyre wear.
Carlos Sainz Jr. was fifth for Ferrari and Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez was sixth, ahead of the other two. Mercedes car by George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
In a sign of how Perez has struggled in recent races, sixth place was his best finish since fourth in Miami. Grand Prize in May.
In the first race since Hamilton won the Belgian Grand Prix after Russell disqualified for underweightThe two Mercedes drivers had opposite racing days.
Russell temporarily overtook Piastri for third at the start of the race before gradually dropping to seventh, while Hamilton started in 14th after being issued a start-finish penalty but moved up six places.
Pierre Gasly finished ninth for Alpine and Fernando Alonso 10 in one Aston Martin.
McLaren have closed the gap to Red Bull in the constructors’ championship to 30 points as the team chases its first title since 1998.
