Piastri takes crucial win as title rival Norris retires

Oscar Piastri has boosted his F1 2025 title hopes by winning the Dutch Grand Prix from pole, while McLaren team-mate and rival Lando Norris retired from second with mechanical issues.

Piastri and Norris looked set to score a straightforward fifth consecutive 1-2 finish for McLaren after Piastri kept his lead into Turn 1 and Norris recovered the position he lost to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

But on lap 65 of 72, Norris started reporting smoke from the cockpit before parking his McLaren MCL39 by the side of the road.

After the third safety car of the afternoon, Piastri led Verstappen home while Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadfar scored a spectacular maiden F1 podium.

Verstappen’s “powerful weapon” barely makes a dent

Before the start, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella warned of a powerful weapon Red Bull had at its disposal in the shape of a fresh set of soft tyres, and Verstappen immediately proved it wasn’t just hollow chatter to talk up the competition.

At the start, the Dutchman, surfing on an orange wave of home support, lunged around the outside of Norris into Tarzan. Verstappen went wide on the exit, but somehow still manage to make the move stick despite getting out of shape through Turns 2 and 3.

Verstappen’s overtake in the intrinsically slower Red Bull was exactly what leader Oscar Piastri wanted to see, as he quickly raced four seconds clear until Norris managed to retaliate around the outside of Turn 1 on Lap 9.

Norris set sail towards Piastri while drivers were informed of the imminent threat of light rain around the windy seaside circuit, bringing the gap down to three seconds when Piastri started reporting drops of rain on lap 15.

At that point Verstappen had already shipped 12 seconds as his powerful weapon turned out to be a glass cannon, the immediate benefit of his softer tyres turning into a longer-term tyre wear disadvantage.

That was reflected by medium-starting Racing Bulls driver Hadjar keeping Verstappen within reach as the impressive rookie kept a train with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Mercedes driver George Russell and the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton at bay with ease.

That status quo only lasted until lap 24, when Hamilton crashed out at the exit of the high-banked Turn 3, bringing out a full safety car.

Leclerc ended up a victim of his team-mate’s mishap, too, as he had just made his first pitstop under green flag conditions while the other frontrunners completed a cheaper stop, with Russell coming out ahead in fifth.

The order on the lap 26 restart was Piastri, Norris, Verstappen, Hadjar, Russell and Leclerc, with Verstappen bolting on mediums while every other car in the field picked the hard Pirellis.

On the fourth lap of green running, Hadjar’s team-mate Liam Lawson and Williams driver Carlos Sainz came together, with the pair having to dive back into the pits with damage. Sainz was fuming, calling the New Zealander “so stupid”, but it was the Spaniard who copped a 10-second penalty.

A brief virtual safety car was called to remove debris from the race track on the main straight, before the on-track drama continued at the front.

On lap 33, Leclerc made a dramatic lunge on Russell to snag fifth, appearing to have cut the apex of Turn 3 to barge his way past, much to Russell’s chagrin.

At the front, it was plain sailing for McLaren, with Piastri controlling a two-second lead to Norris, who was told by his race engineer to try and overtake his team-mate in the absence of any strategic options.

Hadjar continued shadowing Verstappen for a maiden podium spot, with the Racing Bulls man on harder tyre compound that he hoped would pay off towards the end of the race.

With Leclerc’s overtake bafflingly only investigated after the race, Mercedes tried a different tactic to put pressure on the Ferrari man. It first imposed team orders to let Antonelli past Russell, and then brought the Italian rookie in for an aggressive second stop on soft tyres.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: John Thys / AFP via Getty Images

How that would have panned out compared to Russell we will never know, as Leclerc covered Antonelli’s stop on the following lap and the pair came to blows a few corners later, with Antonelli tagging Leclerc into a race-ending spin in Turn 3 and netting himself a 10-second penalty.

Under the resulting safety car most of the field came in to bolt on a fresh set of tyres for the 15-lap dash to the chequered flag. Piastri and Norris picked up fresh hards while Verstappen went to used softs, but the Red Bull driver couldn’t benefit enough to put Norris under threat.

But on lap 65, Norris suffered a dramatic mechanical failure on his McLaren that shuffled him out of the race, in a bitter blow to his title hopes. Norris held his head in his hands on the grassy knoll overlooking the Zandvoort circuit as he witnessed Piastri snaring his seventh win of the 2025 season.

Verstappen had nothing for Piastri on the final restart and settled for second on home soil, narrowly ahead of impressive Hadjar, who grabbed a breakthrough podium after a faultless weekend that saw him qualify fourth.

Russell was fourth ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon, who recovered from a poor qualifying with an excellent comeback drive.

Oliver Bearman also recovered from a pitlane start to take an unexpected sixth spot, beating Aston Martin duo Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso.

Yuki Tsunoda was promoted into the points despite a luckless afternoon, with the second Haas of Esteban Ocon claiming the final point in 10th.

Piastri now heads to next weekend’s Italian grand prix in Monza with a 34-point lead.