The summer break is officially over and done with. The Formula 1 circus returned from its holidays in typically rambunctious fashion, laying down an assortment of storylines to make up for a fallow period in the annual soap opera.
For those missing sandy beaches, the seaside town of Zandvoort offered a neat way to wean people off their out-of-office messages and thrust them back onto the F1 hamster wheel. The racing action might have been stilted in comparison to the pre-summer affairs, as the tight circuit draped across the Dutch dunes made the wheel-to-wheel stuff a little more difficult, but it nonetheless added another element to a once one-dimensional title affair.
But wait, there's more: the announcement of a rookie driver kicked things off, albeit not the one that was expected - although we'll get to that later. There was an attempted seizure of assets as a sponsor was awaiting payment, a qualifying disqualification based upon the tightest margins, and a team's reversal in fortunes in the race after a disappointing Saturday. Let's go through the Dutch Grand Prix weekend's best bits.
1. Norris' iffy starts might not matter any more
When Lando Norris parked his car on the front-most grid slot with the third-biggest pole margin of the year (0.356s), all of the subsequent discourse had laid around his track record of losing the lead into the first corner. A butterfingered grasp of pole had contrived to cost Norris at both Hungary and Barcelona, as the Briton's 'second phase' clutch release proved to be a bugbear of his. The pressure to perform was palpable this time around.
And then it happened again. Norris matched fellow front-row occupant Verstappen in the initial getaway reaction, but gathered too much wheelspin that stunted his progress into the opening corner. The Dutchman grabbed the lead into Turn 1, presumably leading to some choice words from Norris enclosed within his neon-yellow crash lid. But he regrouped and, although Norris fell out of DRS range, he kept tabs on Verstappen and never let the lead exceed two seconds.
When it became apparent that Verstappen couldn't build much of a break, Norris turned the screw and started to loom larger in the Red Bull's mirrors. A lap 17 tilt into Tarzanbocht was seen off, yet the McLaren was able to remain in Verstappen's wheeltracks and cannoned out of the banked Turn 14 for a lunge down the inside of Turn 1 on the next lap. Job done, and the McLaren driver started to augment his lead with a near half-second per lap advantage to ensure it became unassailable. And if McLaren has that kind of performance over Red Bull now, the starts at future races should come with a little less pressure.
2. Red Bull feels the pressure as Verstappen on receiving end of rout
Verstappen is usually on the other end of a 22.9-second drubbing, a margin representative of his customary drives where he disappears into the distance - only to appear again with his car parked up behind the #1 board in parc ferme. Instead, he had to cop the significant margin of defeat. It's the culmination of Red Bull's inability to keep the RB20's development bubbling away, as new floors and bodywork have scarcely added anything to the car - other than the odd side effect of hurting the handling.
"It just seems like we are too slow, but also quite bad on degradation at the moment," Verstappen rued. "That's a bit weird because I think the last few years normally we've been quite good on that. Something has been going wrong lately with the car that we need to understand and we need to quickly try to improve. It's just not a connected balance, front or rear."
Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko called the result "alarming", while Christian Horner reckoned that a higher-downforce set-up direction - with the intent to counter tyre degradation - did not pay off. Versus McLaren's diligent upgrade path that continues to deliver performance, Red Bull has stalled to some degree. The team is very aware that it needs updates to keep moving forward, but it also needs them to deliver the performance.
"We know we have to find performance," Horner added. "So we were 78 points, now we’re 70 ahead. We want to make sure that we extend the lead, not see it continuously diminish."
3. Leclerc hails podium 'miracle', Mercedes caught out
After a relatively flat qualifying session in which Carlos Sainz missed out on the Q3 cut-off, Ferrari could only get Charles Leclerc as high as sixth on the grid. A fight for the lower reaches of the points seemed to beckon, but the wind seemed to change overnight. Instead, Leclerc gained a place at the start and gamely hung onto the George Russell-Oscar Piastri battle, finding that his car had a lot more pace in it over the race stint.
The undercut call also worked out perfectly, lifting Leclerc above both Russell and Piastri to sit in third. Then came a stellar defence in which Leclerc pushed just enough to keep the Australian behind him, leaving Piastri to suffer with the dirty air, to collect a surprise third place. In the meantime, Sainz defied the Zandvoort circuit's nature to make a series of moves up the order, eventually passing Sergio Perez and getting on Russell's tail before the Mercedes driver pitted to clinch fifth.
Mercedes, for its part, had a less fortuitous weekend. Like Sainz, Lewis Hamilton was another prized scalp claimed in Q2, but was also issued with a three-place grid penalty for hindering Perez in qualifying. This made his afternoon more difficult, but rose to eighth - which he retained despite a second stop. Sensing that Russell would lose a place to Sainz anyway, Mercedes called him in for softs with the expectation of catching Perez - but progress was not forthcoming. "Whatever we'd done didn't really work because of the car not being in a good place," Toto Wolff reckoned, anticipating a full review ahead of Monza.
4. Alpine entrusts Jack with Doohan the business in 2025
When Sainz's destination for 2025 was finally revealed, with Williams capturing the Spaniard's signing among a suite of suitors, many wondered which domino would be next to fall. Motorsport.com revealed during the summer that Jack Doohan was expected to earn a promotion to the Alpine seat alongside Pierre Gasly for next season, as the French squad had been among those in the hunt for Sainz.
Indeed, Doohan's signing was unveiled on Friday; the six-time F2 race winner has spent this season testing older machinery for the team, and his performance across those outings and in his six FP1 sessions was considered good enough to earn an F1 debut. He revealed that he was given the news on the Monday evening after the Belgian Grand Prix, and put pen to paper on a deal before the summer shutdown.
This means that Doohan reunites with new Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes, who ran the Australian in Asian F3 at Hitech in 2019. Doohan's career highlights include third in the 2023 F2 championship standings, having been runner-up to Dennis Hauger in 2021's FIA F3 title battle. A former Red Bull junior, Doohan switched to Alpine's set-up after feeling he'd get more opportunities with the Renault-run squad - a decision that has been vindicated.
5. Antonelli in for Monza FP1 as 2025 preparation continues
Highly-rated Mercedes junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli will get his first taste of a Formula 1 weekend at Monza, as he steps into the W15 for FP1. Having turned 18 on Sunday, Antonelli had previously been given special dispensation to make an F1 weekend debut at 17 - but this was ultimately not required. The Italian has also been given experience of Mercedes' older machinery under the testing of previous cars regulations, ensuring he has experience of high-power machinery ahead of his first 'proper' run in contemporary cars.
It is widely expected that Mercedes will elevate Antonelli into a race seat next season to fill the void left by Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari, and the FP1 session will offer the team insight into how he works with the race engineers at the circuit.
"We're going to do FP1 with Kimi in Monza, which is going to be a really emotional moment," Wolff said. "Because we followed him since he was 11 and a baby, go-kart driver, and a Mercedes kid proud to be in the garage. To see him drive out on Friday in FP1 in Monza, in front of the tifosi, having an Italian kid in a competitive car, I think that will be something that everybody in Italy can be very proud of. And then we take it from there."
6. Mere microns behind Williams' failed legality checks; Sargeant set for demotion?
Alex Albon's impressive eighth place in qualifying for the Dutch GP was expunged from the record when his new floor was declared illegal. Scans by the FIA had shown that the floor was too wide, which contrasted with Williams' own scans at the factory and ahead of Friday practice.
Vowles told Sky that the amount that the new floor was off by was "fractions of a millimetre" in one specific area, and that it could be fixed with "a bit of 400-grit sandpaper". But the damage was done; Albon was sent to the back of the grid, from which he could scarcely recover having become entrenched within the midfield.
Logan Sargeant, for his part, had been unable to qualify at all owing to his heavy shunt in FP3. After touching the grass on the exit of Turn 3, the American was thrown into a spin and he made contact with the opposite Armco barrier. This caused considerable damage and the car caught fire, but amazingly the chassis was unscathed and could be built up for the race on Sunday.
Regardless, Williams was known to be dissatisfied with Sargeant's performance and his immediate future with the team is once again under review. Mick Schumacher and Liam Lawson are being considered as options should Williams wish to make a switch for the final nine races.
7. Haas deals with $9m fees, Uralkali attempts to seize
After an arbitration hearing in June in the Swiss courts, Haas had been ordered to repay former title sponsor Uralkali $9m after their deal was torn up on the eve of the 2022 season following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Russian chemicals giant, owned by Dmitry Mazepin - father of ex-F1 driver Nikita - had paid $13m for title sponsor rights that season, and Haas was able to keep $4m of that.
But Uralkali contended that it had not seen the repayment by a July deadline, and took action in the Dutch courts to seize Haas' assets. Bailiffs and police were called to the circuit to take an inventory of Haas' assets at the circuit, while the American team was able to continue its racing activities in Zandvoort. Haas later stated that it had conducted the repayment on Friday into a Middle Eastern account owing to sanctions but, it being the weekend there, had not yet gone through.
This meant that the team was unable to move its freight to Monza on Sunday night thanks to a court order, but is now able to do so as Uralkali received the payment on Monday.
"Uralkali confirms that we have received in full the payment owed by Haas (including interest and fees) following the ruling of the Swiss court of arbitration," it stated. "We have also collected the race car owed to us under the terms of the sponsorship agreement.
"As such, Uralkali has notified Dutch authorities that they may release Haas’ assets from arrest as an interim measure, and Haas is free to take them out of the Netherlands."
