Piastri brilliant, Norris heartbroken at Zandvoort

Did this decide the world title?

There are still nine races to run, so it’s too early to answer that question. But given the high reliability that’s usually a feature in Formula 1 today, this was a significant blow to Norris’ ambitions. It might well be that we’ll look back on this as the moment he lost the 2025 World Championship. Ahead of the upcoming Italian Grand Prix, Piastri holds a commanding 34-point lead over his team-mate, having started the first weekend back from the summer break just nine ahead.

The smoke trail came on lap 65 of 72, just as Norris was hoping to mount one final attack on Piastri to steal the victory. However, the chances are he would have come up short. The Englishman had an edge on pace over the Aussie through practice, but as is now becoming common, Piastri delivered when it counted most by grabbing a vital pole position, finding the speed on Saturday just when he needed it.

And he controlled the race beautifully from the front, leading every lap and claiming fastest lap to complete a rare ‘slam’. On a circuit where overtaking is so difficult and with the McLarens on the same tyres, it’s highly unlikely Norris would have pulled a race-winning pass.

Nevertheless, it would have been fun to see what Norris could have managed. Instead, he lost second place (and the 18 points that go with it) through no fault of his own. As the still helmeted figure briefly sat among the sand-dunes to take in what he’d just lost, before walking sadly back to the paddock, the significance of this failure weighed heavy.

Piastri’s calm amid three restarts

Even before Norris’ heartbreak, this had been an eventful Grand Prix. Already Piastri had been forced to deal with two restarts after safety car interruptions following crashes for both Ferraris, and now he faced a third after his team-mate’s car had been craned behind the barriers. This time, instead of Norris stalking him, he had home hero Max Verstappen — and that is always a daunting proposition.

But as he had done twice before, Piastri timed his moment to sprint away out of Turn 12 to perfection, accelerated through the final banked turn and was just clear of Verstappen’s range down the pit straight.

The Red Bull was on soft Pirellis compared to Piastri’s hards and the four-time Champion had them fired up to attack, but through Tarzan and the banked Hugenholzbocht all Verstappen could do was follow in the McLaren’s wheeltracks. A brilliant drive from Piastri as he scored the ninth victory of his career to pull himself level with the tally achieved by his manager, Mark Webber.

Verstappen’s skilful save

As he’s accepted all too often this year, the reigning World Champion knew his chances of taking on the superior McLarens was slim from third on the grid. But Max being Max, he gave it his best shot.

Starting on the red-walled soft Pirellis compared to the yellow-walled mediums on the McLaren was a sign of Verstappen’s intent. From the lights, Norris made a slightly better start than Piastri, forcing Oscar to move right to defend. That then opened the door for Verstappen to swoop around the outside of Tarzan and into second place on his grippy rubber. Now he kept his foot in through Turn 2 on the wide line, hoping to fling it down the inside of the leading McLaren into the banked Turn 3.

But heavy offline sand caused the Red Bull to snap violently and Verstappen needed all of his prodigious skill to keep control, sliding up the track in Turn 3 and emerging still in between the two McLarens. A fantastic, heart-in-mouth moment.

Norris had to get past Verstappen if he was to stand any chance of taking on Piastri. On lap nine, after a DRS tow down the main straight, it was his turn to take the high line around Tarzan and second place was his. Verstappen could have run his friend out wide on the exit, but chose not to, perhaps mindful that he’d be interfering in the title battle.

So often hard-headed wheel to wheel, it was good to see him accept what was inevitable and make the right call. Little did he know second place would fall back into his lap in the closing stages, anyway.

Podium reward for rookie Hadjar

Norris’ late demise also boosted what had already been a special day for Isack Hadjar. The Racing Bulls rookie had surprised himself by comfortably maintaining the fantastic fourth place he’d earned in qualifying, as he first held off George Russell and then Charles Leclerc after the Ferrari had muscled past the Mercedes at the chicane.

Now without Leclerc to threaten him and Russell too far back to worry about, Hadjar’s maiden F1 podium was in his grasp and thoroughly well-deserved after a superb performance all across the weekend. The Frenchman is surely earning himself a promotion to the Red Bull A-team for 2026 , although as a string of drivers including the incumbent Yuki Tsunoda could probably tell him, perhaps he’d be better off remaining where he is…

Double hit for Ferrari

Crashes for both Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton out of Turn 3 made this a disastrous weekend for Ferrari. The latter had again outqualified the former as the red cars lined up sixth and seventh on the grid, with Leclerc making a place up on Russell during the opening lap to run fifth. So far, so reasonable.

But on lap 23, Hamilton ran up wide at the banked Turn 3, and on the sponsored green surface beyond the white lines his Ferrari snapped out of control. Its right front slapped the barrier and the seven-time World Champion was out. After the self-lacerating “useless” comments in Hungary, such a mistake was precisely what he didn’t need after the few weeks off to reset. To rub salt, he was handed a five-place grid penalty for Monza this coming weekend for driving too fast towards the pitlane during the pre-race reconnaissance laps.

Hamilton’s shunt caused the first safety car interruption, and his team-mate’s crash at the same spot would cause the second. The difference here being Leclerc was entirely blameless.

The Monegasque had pulled his hard move on Russell at the chicane, running briefly beyond the track limits on the way in to scuff up alongside the Mercedes on the way out. Speculation had been the Ferrari ace would be penalised for running off the track, a point Russell had been quick to make.

Later — and thankfully — the stewards dismissed handing any sanction to Leclerc for his move, which in less prohibitive times would simply have been applauded as a great piece of tough, opportunistic driving. A few laps later Mercedes called on Russell, likely carrying some damage from the contact with the Ferrari, to let team-mate Kimi Antonelli through so he could have a crack at the Ferrari.

Then on lap 52 the team called the Italian teenager in for a second stop and a set of soft tyres to arm him for a late attack. At this point, Ferrari crucially decided to respond — against Leclerc’s judgement — and called their man in too for his own set of softs. He rejoined just ahead of Antonelli, but having narrowly avoided the undercut he now found himself nerfed out of the race. Antonelli’s lunge into Turn 3 was nowhere near on.

His right front connected with Leclerc’s left rear and the Ferrari was in the barrier. Having moved his car to the outside of the circuit before abandoning it, Leclerc gloomily ignored photographers snapping away at him as he sat despondently on the top of a sand dune.

Antonelli earned himself a ten-second penalty, then five seconds more for speeding in the pitlane to drop him far out of the points. Both he and Ferrari will be hoping they’ve spent all their misfortune in Zandvoort before they arrive for their blessed home race at Monza. It surely can’t go much worse for them in Italy this coming weekend.

Bearman’s best result

The knock-on at the end of the race was satisfaction for others. As Russell finished just off the podium in fourth, Alex Albon had climbed ten places from 15^th on the grid to finish fifth, Behind him, Ollie Bearman had gone a few better; from a despondent pitlane start, the Haas driver worked his way up to sixth, a career best result so far. Running long on hard tyres from the start and how the safety cars fell empowered Bearman’s rise.

Lance Stroll overcame two crashes earlier in the weekend to finish ahead of Fernando Alonso for an Aston Martin seven-eight, with Red Bull’s Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon in the other Haas picking up the final points-paying positions.

Now for Monza. Never mind Antonelli and the Ferraris, Norris more than anyone will be relieved he has little time to stew. He needs a big performance, and a balancing slice of misfortune for his team-mate would help, if his title hopes are to be revived.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.