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A race full of anticipation and significance. A weekend that began with Oscar Piastri struggling for pace relative to McLaren team mate Lando Norris but with Piastri ultimately leading start to finish from pole – and Norris posting a rare retirement from close behind late in the race.
An aggressive starting tyre gamble from Red Bull, which facilitated Max Verstappen at his magical knife-edge best in the race’s opening seconds. Three safety cars, one for a Lewis Hamilton crash into the barriers unassisted on a damp painted surface – and a superb first podium for Isack Hadjar, sitting in Verstappen’s wake virtually throughout.
Zandvoort’s collection of slow-medium speed long corners make it one of the most favourable of the season for the McLaren’s traits. It’s fast everywhere, of course, invariably the fastest. But it’s really fast around here.
The only way this wasn’t going to be a straight Piastri vs Norris contest was if an interloper could get between or ahead of them at the start, as Charles Leclerc had done in Hungary.
Appropriately, around Zandvoort, the main contender for that role was Max Verstappen who made a thrilling Gilles Villeneuve-esque attempt to upend the natural order.
But even Verstappen at his most audacious couldn’t break the chain. He used his soft tyres vs the McLarens' mediums to split them at the start. But after eight laps he was already 4.5 seconds behind Piastri and being overtaken around the outside of Tarzan by Norris.
Verstappen would get a few more opportunities with safety car restarts, but essentially the Red Bull had nowhere near enough pace to take on the McLarens and was probably no faster than the Racing Bulls, Ferraris and Mercedes lined up not far behind for most of the race.
Verstappen’s soft tyre offset (the rest of the top 10 started on the longer-range medium) came about as the only logical way to take the fight to the McLarens.
Red Bull had saved a new set especially for that purpose. With the race theoretically poised between a one-stop and a two – the increased pit lane speed limit and one step softer compound range than last year nudging it away from the previous nailed-on one-stop – McLaren had to cover the possibility of a one-stop.
Especially with Piastri’s Hungary race – trapped behind a slower car but committed to a two-stop - so fresh in the memory.
Therefore it could not afford to start on the soft. From Red Bull’s perspective, what was there to lose? The soft, said Pirelli, should gain you 1.09 metres over the medium from standstill off the grid to 150km/h. Valuable indeed.
Piastri, Norris and Verstappen all made good starts and went through Tarzan in grid order.
That looked to be that, but Verstappen wasn’t finished yet. He hung on by his fingertips to Norris’ outside, just enough so Lando couldn’t close off Turn 2.
That outside line at that speed on full tanks and cold tyres was incredibly ambitious and, sure enough, the Red Bull began to loop into what seemed sure to be a spin. Instead he caught it and though he tank-slapped across the track, he passed Norris in the process!
It was one of those very special moments when a great driver’s unfeasible level of skill was made nakedly obvious.
But it was of no power against Piastri, who was long-gone.
Once Norris had repassed, Verstappen concentrated on getting the softs to last as long as possible, keeping Hadjar just out of DRS range, and in this he did a good enough job that he was able to come in at the same time as everyone else despite his softer tyres, under the safety car created by Lewis Hamilton’s crash into the Turn 3 barriers on lap 23.
As everyone switched to the hards and probably set to go to the end, Verstappen was no longer at a strategic disadvantage.
Hamilton had been running seventh, tight in George Russell’s DRS zone and only just behind a similar DRS stalemate between Hadjar and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
They in turn were just behind Verstappen. They all had similar pace and were differentiated only by the incidents arising from their close contests on a circuit layout that invites risky moves. It’s that or stay in line.
Leclerc was unlucky in making his first stop just before his team-mate created a safety car – which allowed Russell to get ahead of Leclerc by pitting under that safety car.
Leclerc tried to make amends with a spectacularly late dive around the outside of the Mercedes into the chicane. He got by, but they touched and Leclerc was forced to complete the move off track as a surprised Russell had left him no room.
After the race, the stewards wrote it off as a racing incident. Russell’s floor was damaged in the moment, losing him around 1s per lap of performance and obliging him to switch positions with teammate Kimi Antonelli.
Ferrari had tried to break Leclerc’s stalemate, switching him to a two-stop as he could find no way past the immaculate Hadjar but was in danger of an undercut attempt from Antonelli, who had just made a second stop. Which, if the two-stop indeed proved faster, would potentially have lost Leclerc a position.
From Mercedes’ point of view there was no apparent downside risk as on new tyres he’d probably have enough of a pace advantage to actually overtake the cars he’d lost position to by pitting.
From Ferrari’s viewpoint, the same logic applied to responding on the following lap – as Leclerc would remain ahead of Antonelli and would probably retake the lost positions to be back behind Hadjar, but on newer tyres.
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So despite Leclerc insisting that his tyres were fine, he was brought in. He exited just in front of the Mercedes and as they approached Turn 3 Antonelli made a doomed move to the inside of the banked turn.
From that moment the collision was inevitable and Leclerc took the brunt of it as he hit the wall.
Antonelli lost a couple of places but continued. Cue the second safety car and everyone coming in for a set of new tyres for the restart.
Even the two Haas cars which had made their hards last for 52 laps and so were duly rewarded.
This time Verstappen fitted a used set of softs (as Red Bull had nothing else left) and the McLarens went for the hards.
Would this give Verstappen another bite at the cherry? No. Piastri judged the restart brilliantly and Norris was able to repel Verstappen’s brief challenge.
Piastri then pulled himself out of Norris’ DRS range and the pair quickly put distance once more on the Red Bull and the chasing Hadjar.
Just behind the Racing Bulls, Russell in his damaged car had benefitted from Antonelli’s incident to be the leading Mercedes, fending off Alex Albon, with Antonelli in the DRS range of the Williams but penalised 10s for the Turn 3 accident (and additionally for speeding in the pitlane).
The final safety car came seven laps from the end as Norris pulled his smoking McLaren to the side, thanks to what Andrea Stella confirmed after the race was an "issue on the chassis side".
Like that, the complexion of the championship took a heavy turn in the direction of the unflappable Piastri, while Verstappen achieved the maximum possible (again) and Hadjar confirmed his major star credentials.
