Formula One’s long-awaited return arrived after a month off, bringing the excitement back with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. 

While the constructors' championship is seemingly in McLaren's control, the drivers' championship battle is very tight between the drivers. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were only separated by 11 points going into the weekend.

FP1, FP2, FP3

All three sessions of free practice were entertaining and provided some top-end lap times. FP1 got off to a rocky start when the Mercedes’ rookie driver, Kimi Antonelli, understeered at turn nine, causing a lock-up of his tyres. The top-10 of FP1 proved to be interesting as fans saw Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll take third while his teammate Fernando Alonso came right behind him in fourth. Fans also saw both Williams’ drivers, Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz, come in the top ten, while neither Ferrari could achieve that mark.

In FP2, Norris set the pace at P1 as Alonso came in P2. Both Ferrari cars appeared to be slow once again, finishing in P6 and P8, respectively. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was also able to sneak into the top 5 for FP2 after failing to do so in FP1. Racing Bulls rookie driver Isack Hadjar was forced to end in FP2 after a battery issue made him stop on track. 

FP3 was objectively the most entertaining, as the top-end lap times took effect. Norris set the fastest ever lap time at Zandvoort with a time of 1:08.972. Behind him was teammate and driver championship leader Oscar Piastri. Both Williams drivers returned to the top 10, with Sainz finishing P4. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc made it into P6 with Verstappen getting P5 yet again. Leclerc’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton, failed to get into the top 10 again. Stroll and Alonso also rounded out the practice sessions by finishing in the top 10.

Q1- 

The first part of Q1 kicked off with Lance Stroll crashing his Aston Martin, putting him at P20, effectively ending his chance to qualify for Q2. Haas rookie Ollie Bearman was putting together a good last lap until he made a big mistake and had to cut his last lap time, putting him at P19. Championship leader Oscar Piastri outqualified teammate Lando Norris by just over 1 tenth of a second to come in P1. Rounding out the top 15 and advancing to Q2 were Max Verstappen, Isack Hadjar, Mercedes’ George Russell, Leclerc, Hamilton, Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Antonelli, Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda, Kick Sauber rookie driver Gabriel Bortoleto, Alpine driver Pierre Gasly, and Alex Albon. 

Q2- 

Q2 had spectators shocked as Oscar Piastri broke the circuit's best lap time by .008 seconds, until it was then broken by Lando Norris again as he slotted in with a 1:08.874. Max Verstappen, who is looking to get back on track and get a podium, came in P3 as he qualified for Q3 as well. One of the bigger surprises of Q2 was seeing Kimi Antonelli once again fail to qualify for Q3 for the third straight race. 

Carlos Sainz, who has had a pretty good weekend up to this point, was able to qualify for Q3 for the first time since the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix back in May. 

Also qualifying for Q3 were Isack Hadjar, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, and Liam Lawson, who has been in great form after making Q3 for the 3rd straight race. 

Q3- 

The final round of qualifying saw the lap record broken yet again, by who else but the McLaren drivers. Lando Norris put up a great time of 1:08.674; however, that wasn’t good enough to topple his teammate Oscar Piastri’s first lap time of 1:08.662

The rest of Q3 was just as entertaining as Max Verstappen was able to reclaim a podium spot in qualifying but coming in P3. Right behind him was Isack Hadjar, who achieved his highest starting grid spot in his young F1 career, coming in P4. 

Neither Ferrari driver was able to outpace George Russell for P5, making their qualifying performance a disappointment to many. Ending in P6 was Leclerc, who edged out his teammate Hamilton by five hundredths of a second. 

P8 was taken by Liam Lawson, while P9 was taken by Carlos Sainz. Although he finally made Q3 again, he wasn’t extremely happy as he was off his pace from earlier in the day. 

When asked, Sainz said the track conditions and track temperature “didn’t suit our car.”

 In P10 was Fernando Alonso, who finished exactly where he did in FP3. 

Race-

As the lights went out and the race began, fans saw Max Verstappen have a beautiful overtake right after the first corner to see himself into second place. Norris was able to keep his position at the first corner but had no answer moments later. Verstappen pulled off this move even though he almost lost control at turn two as he lost some grip. 

All but six drivers chose to run the medium compound tyre. Both Haas drivers were the only ones to put the hard tyres on, while both Red Bull drivers, along with Hulkenberg and Colapinto, elected for the softs. 

Alex Albon managed an incredible first lap as he was able to quickly overtake ten cars to go from P15 to P10. Bortoleto did not have the same fortune, as by the start of lap two, he fell all the way to 18th. Bortoleto and Stroll had a little bit of tyre-to-tyre action, which had a piece of Bortoleto's front wing dangle off his car. Leclerc was also able to manage a nice overtake on Russell as he appeared to just lock up a bit.

Lap nine saw Lando Norris make a beautiful move around the outside to regain second from Max Verstappen, who defended the best he could against the McLaren driver. Things got a little slow as Tsunoda was doing a good job of fending off Kimi Antonelli. 

Lap 23 was when things really took a turn. While some drivers decided to pit, and in the midst of a heated race, Lewis Hamilton seemed to lose grip and went into the barrier at turn three. 

Hamilton was taken out of the race, the safety car was deployed, which allowed many drivers to pit, and a frustrating weekend for Hamilton got even worse.

Lap 27 had a huge blow for both Williams and Racing Bulls as Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson made contact and fell down the order. Sainz was visibly frustrated after he and Lawson had to pit after the incident.

Sainz said over the team radio, “He’s just so stupid…This guy, it’s always the same guy.” Lawson seemed to move in on Sainz, creating the contact.

Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar was doing a tremendous job fending off George Russell to stay in fourth. While worrying about Hadjar, Leclerc got ahead of Russell near lap 33 to move into fifth. Leclerc did seem to be off track during the wheel-to-wheel battle, although the FIA did not deem it worthy of a penalty. 

Russell was heard over the team radio telling the team on lap 39 that Isack Hadjar was “Moving under braking.” 

Going back to lap 27, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile  ruled that there would be a 10 second penalty on Sainz. On Lap 37, the penalty was revealed to the audience and a visibly frustrated Williams racer.

On lap 38, an angered Alonso is upset at his team.

 “You put me out in this traffic,” Alonso said. “I don’t know…Let's undercut these people….let’s do something.” 

Lap 42 saw George Russell get annoyed at team radio orders as he was told to swap positions with teammate Kimi Antonelli. He was ordered to try to push and overtake Charles Leclerc for 5th. Antonelli moved up five places as he started in P11 and is now all the way in P6. 

Stroll was also having a nice race, as by lap 43, he moved up to ninth and gained ten places. Lap 46 sees Aston Martin honor Alonso’s wishes as they pit him to try and shake things up.

As the race went on longer, the Haas cars were now on lap 50 and had yet to pit. Although Bearman and Ocon have done a marvelous job lasting 50 laps on the hard tyre, they had to pit soon. Keeping them out was a bold strategy shown by Haas as they are in desperate need of securing points. 

On lap 54, Leclerc and Ferrari responded to Mercedes pitting Kimi Antonelli by electing to pit Leclerc for the soft tyres. Leclerc came out just ahead of Kimi, although when Kimi tried to make a move around the inside of Leclerc, they collided. As a result, Leclerc got sent into the wall, ending his race. Both Ferrari drivers were removed from the race in a weekend in which they needed to secure points for the championship standings.

Leclerc seemed frustrated about the decision to pit as he felt his tyres “felt good.”

The bold strategy of not pitting worked wonders for the Haas cars as they entered during the safety car and saw both drivers in the top 15. Ollie slid into 11th place, and Ocon went up to 14th.

Kimi Antonelli was also handed a ten-second time penalty for his collision with Leclerc and was also given a five-second time penalty later on for speeding in the pit lane in what was just an unlucky race for the rookie. 

Lewis Hamilton spoke to BBC 5 Live’s Rosanna Tennant after crashing into the barriers, in which he said, “I’m not really sure what happened to be honest. I just had a snap going into Turn Three and I couldn’t recover it.” 

Fernando Alonso started lap 59 running in ninth place, a sign that the team strategy worked. Verstappen also elected to go onto the soft tyre yet again as he looked to push for P2 and get ahead of Lando Norris. 

The thrilling events of the race didn't stop there. On turn 66, Norris retired from the grand prix following an engine problem.  The retirement was a huge blow for Norris, who is currently fighting with Piastri for first in the drivers' championship.

Conclusion-

Zandvoort proved to be a thrilling weekend and showed that race strategy could prevail.

The Red Bull racing company had Verstappen secure his first podium in four races and their young talent, Hadjar, secure the first podium of his career.

Ollie Bearman had the race of his life by getting P6, his best ever finish.

Oscar Piastri now extends his championship lead by 34 points heading into the final nine races.