A "simply lovely" win for Lando Norris in Zandvoort
- pitwallstories
- Aug 28, 2024
- 5 min read
How a McLaren managed to snatch away the win from home hero Max Verstappen in a RedBull.
The circuit of Zandvoort, stage of the Dutch Grand Prix, was originally intended as a place where the victory parades for the Germans were held, during the occupation of the Netherlands.
More recently, history seems to have repeated itself as the circuit became once again a victory parade for the lonely lion of Formula One. Three times world champion, Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman has won on this circuit three times already, a win for each championship won at the end of the 2021-2022-2023 season. It is his home race, where all the stands are colored in his orange and the chants and screams are in his name.
Today’s race seemed to have Max Verstappen written all over it, until the drivers sat back in their cars after summer break, and the results simply shocked everyone.
Shocking Saturday results
After a tricky start of the race weekend, with two days of endless rain and stormy clouds hovering over the circuit, the day of qualifying finally came.
Once again, home hero Max Verstappen seemed to have all the cards in his favor before driving down the track. Here, his teammate Sergio Perez sets best lap in Q1, managing to have provisional pole position.
Surprises came at the end of Q2 where both Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton dropped out of the rest of the qualifying session. Later on the Ferrari driver complained about the balance and a situation of traffic that happened during the second session of quali.
As for the start of Q3, the first row lock-up was once again all papaya with Oscar Piastri taking the lead, followed by his teammate Lando Norris, up until Max Verstappen came into second position. But the time was not up yet and the surprises were certainly not done.
Following the path of success, started already a few races ago, McLaren certainly did deliver with this qualifying session seeing Lando Norris eventually taking pole position, while the Aussie driver got P3.
A surprisingly second place was given to the home hero Max Verstappen, while the rest of the starting grid for Sunday appeared to have mixed protagonists as well. Charles Leclerc, after a difficult session only managed to put the car into sixth place while fourth and fifth were occupied by George Russell and a reborn Sergio Perez. Both Aston Martins were in the top ten, Alonso in seventh and Stroll in ninth.
Alex Albon, on the other hand, managed to drive his Williams all the way up to P8, doing an amazing job with the vehicle and tyre management. But it wasn’t soon after that he had to change that smile into a saddened grin as he suffered a disqualification dropping him out of the best ten.
What happened on Sunday then?
The circuit of Zandvoort greeted the drivers with a dry track after having had two days of slightly mixed weather. Albon’s disqualification wasn’t the only change the grid had before lights out; Hamilton got a three grid penalty for impending Perez and Magnussen dropped all the way down to the pit lane for power unit changes.
Eventually though, all the drivers were ready and it was finally lights out again, announcing the start of the second part of the 2024 Formula One season.
As if under a curse, Lando Norris lost the first position not even a lap into the race as Max Verstappen took the lead pretty easily after a difficult start from both McLaren drivers.
After Turn 1 Russell got ahead of Piastri and Leclerc surprised the crowd by overtaking Sergio Perez and taking possession of the fifth position.
Wanting to add a fourth win in a row on his home circuit, Verstappen quickly drove away from the british, securing a gap of more than a second in order to keep his opponent out of the DRS range.
While the Dutchman managed to accomplish his plan of leading the race wonderfully, a bit of drama stirred up the situation in the back of the race where Magnussen locked up in turn 1, giving him even more work to do in order to gain back his place in the race.
Close to the point zone, Carlos Sainz was desperately trying to reaffirm himself after a very difficult qualifying as he was battling Pierre Gasly who, on the other hand, was doing an amazing job with his Alpine. The Spaniard drove extremely close to the Frenchman but luckily for everyone they didn’t cause any difficulties on track and the safety car calmly stayed in the parking lot.
Following Albon’s first stop in the pitlane, there was a curious message exchange between the McLaren team and its second-place driver where they asked Norris who he thought they were racing. Norris’ dry response silenced the team radio after he shared his preference to go on with “Plan A” and try to fight Max.
As more laps went by, Norris managed to create a gap between him and the dutch driver of four seconds by lap 24. Verstappen immediately complained by saying that he was experiencing issues with the car as it refused to turn or do anything he was telling it to do.
Following a chaotic entrance and exit from the pitlane, Norris’ lead on Verstappen was of almost 10 seconds and after that, nothing else about the race seemed to matter.
By lap 45, the gap was 12 seconds, Verstappen was trying to manage his gap with Leclerc, who was being chased by Piastri as Russell was doing anything he could to hold his fifth position.
Not many seconds back, Perez found himself occupied by defending against Sainz who was doing an excellent job attacking him, trying to look for the better spot to overtake.
With only 10 laps remaining, Norris’ lead was now up to more than 15 seconds as his teammate Piastri drove like a lion to try and get past the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
Eventually the Aussie had to accept a fourth position at the end of the race, after having driven so well during the last laps.
Lando Norris’ gap to Max Verstappen ended the race with more than 20 seconds on the clock, shocking everyone as to why the RedBull had been so slow during the race.
Another surprise was to see Charles Leclerc on the podium, given that he himself has said that “it would’ve taken a miracle” to even get close to the podium zone.
“It feels amazing once again,” said Norris. “I wouldn’t say a perfect race, because of Lap 1 again, but afterwards the pace was very strong – the car was unbelievable today. I could get comfortable, I could push and get past Max, which was the main thing, and I just [went] from there. Honestly, [it was] quite a straightforward race. Still tough, but very enjoyable.”
And so it ended like this the first race of the second half of the season. Many surprises and certainly a lot of things to discuss about, maybe even an actual fight for the Championship?
