Formula 1 News: Norris runs away to win 2024 Dutch GP

Lando Norris and his clearly superior McLaren passed Max Verstappen on lap 18 and pulled away to win the 2024 Dutch GP at Zandvoort by a massive 22.9-seconds – the largest winning margin of the year.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Verstappen beat polesitter Norris into Turn 1 to lead the first 17 laps, but Norris waited until lap 18 to blow past on the main straight and then proceeded to pull away every lap to win his 2nd career F1 race. Norris also set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap on worn hard tires to take maximum points.

“I have a lot of Dutch supporters, so I thank them very much,” said a happy Norris.

“I think from quite early on from Lap 5, 6, 7 I expected Max to start pushing on and he never did. His pace was dropping off and mine was improving. It was a nice feeling!”

Verstappen saw his streak of three straight wins at Zandvoort broken. Norris now trails Verstappen by 70 points, 295 to 225.

“We had a good start, so we tried everything we could today but it’s quite clear we were not quick enough,” said Verstappen. “I just tried to do my own race, and that was second today.”

The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc held off heavy pressure from the 2nd McLaren of Oscar Piastri to finish in third behind Norris and Verstappen.

“Very, very surprised – I’m not very often happy with a P3 but today we can be extremely happy with the job we have done,” said Leclerc. “In the race we found some more pace, executed a perfect strategy and undercut two competitors.”

Piastri settled for 4th, over 27 seconds behind his McLaren teammate.

Carlos Sainz Jr. drove a strong race in the #55 Ferrari to round out the top-5, over 32 seconds behind Norris.

Sergio Perez brought the #11 Red Bull-Honda home in 6th ahead of the two Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Ninth-placed Pierre Gasly gave Alpine something to celebrate on Oliver Oakes’s first weekend as their new team boss, while Fernando Alonso grabbed the final point on offer for Aston Martin by getting the better of Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg in the closing stages.

Lance Stroll was the 12th driver to cross the line in his Aston but fell back to 13th, behind RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, after he was found guilty of speeding in the pit lane and got slapped with a five-second time penalty.

The result today means the constructors’ gap is cut from 42 points down to just 30 – Red Bull over McLaren.

See full point standings

They are coming, and Red Bull knows they need to find something special to hold the McLaren cars off.

2024 Dutch GP Race Results – 72 Laps

Norris scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.