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Lando Norris may have had a poor start, but he more than made up for it as he won the Dutch Grand Prix by a 22-second margin over home hero Max Verstappen.
After qualifying, polesitter Norris talked about his starts, acknowledging they hadn’t quite been the best but that he was “still up there with being one of the best average starters.” Several times throughout the season, he hasn’t been able to nail the start when he needed to and has had to chase down the driver ahead. And on Sunday, that was no different.
The second phase of the start is where Norris lost the lead. The reaction time was nearly identical to Verstappen’s, but he lost 0.41 seconds going from 0-200 km/h. From there, he needed to hunt the Dutchman down on his turf. Verstappen hasn’t been pleased with his car throughout the weekend, saying Saturday that he felt he “lacked a bit of pace” during qualifying. Norris zipped past the Red Bull driver on lap 18, and though Verstappen initially tried to hang onto Norris, McLaren didn’t sound worried about a potential undercut spoiling another win.
The Briton ultimately zipped away with the lead in a dominating fashion, lapping eight-tenths of a second ahead of Verstappen at some points. The win means F1’s driver and team championships are even tighter, with just nine races remaining. Norris cut Verstappen’s lead in the drivers’ standings to 70 points, and Red Bull leads McLaren by just 30 points in the constructors’ standings.
The rest of the top 10 is as follows:
- Lando Norris
- Max Verstappen
- Charles Leclerc
- Oscar Piastri
- Carlos Sainz
- Sergio Pérez
- George Russell
- Lewis Hamilton
- Pierre Gasly
- Fernando Alonso
This is a developing story.
Top photo: Getty Images
