Norris wins at Zandvoort, Antonelli second extends championship lead: Verstappen out on lap one

The 2026 Dutch Grand Prix, held on 23 August at the Zandvoort circuit, was decided in the first lap and in the closing stages of the race, with two episodes of opposite significance. Lando Norris won in his McLaren; behind him finished the Mercedes cars of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.

The retirement that changed the race

Max Verstappen retired after a crash at the final corner on the first lap. The driver was unhurt and the race was stopped with a red flag. The immediate suspension wiped out the advantage built in qualifying by the drivers ahead and returned everyone to a restart, a condition that typically compresses the pace differences accumulated up to that point.

Mercedes’ team order

The second episode came in the closing stages: Mercedes ordered a swap of positions between Russell and Antonelli. The Italian driver finished second, about 11.5 seconds behind Norris; Russell was third. It was a declared team decision, not an on-track overtake, and its logic is more about the championship than the race itself: consolidating the advantage of the driver leading the standings rather than splitting the points neutrally between the two teammates.

Position	Driver	Car
1	Lando Norris	McLaren
2	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes
3	George Russell	Mercedes
4	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari
5	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari

Ferrari stays off the podium

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finished fourth and fifth. For the Italian team, it is the second consecutive race without a podium finish: a fact that, at this stage of the twelfth round of the season, weighs more on morale than on the standings, but which describes a stable position behind McLaren and Mercedes in the conditions at Zandvoort, a track with banked corners and few overtaking zones.

The standings

Antonelli leads the Drivers’ Championship with a 59-point advantage over Russell and Hamilton, tied for second place. The margin is wide but not decisive: under the current format, a single race weekend is worth a maximum number of points that makes a comeback possible only through a series of opposite results among the leaders. The fact that Russell and Hamilton are level on points, moreover, splits the pursuit between two drivers from different teams, a condition that reduces the likelihood of a comeback concentrated on a single rival.

Norris, with the win, put McLaren back on top step in a race in which Mercedes nonetheless placed two cars in the top three: in terms of constructors’ points, this is the kind of result that favours the German team more than the British one.

The next round

The calendar moves to Monza, where the Italian Grand Prix is scheduled from 4 to 6 September 2026. It is a circuit with characteristics opposite to Zandvoort’s — long straights, extreme braking, low-downforce setups — and for this reason it rarely confirms the hierarchies of the previous race. The standings with which Formula 1 arrives in Brianza, however, remain those from Zandvoort: Antonelli in front, two chasers tied on 59 points, and Ferrari chasing its first podium after two races empty-handed.

Sources: Adnkronos; Newsauto; Motorbox.