POWER RANKINGS: Who impressed our judges at Zandvoort as F1 burst back into life after the summer break?

Lando Norris ended Max Verstappen’s run of home victories with a storming win at the Dutch Grand Prix, as McLaren continue to pile the pressure on Red Bull in the title race. But alongside the front-runners, who else impressed our judges at Zandvoort? Check out the latest Power Rankings leaderboard below...

How it works

Our five-judge panel assess each driver after every Grand Prix and score them out of 10 according to their performance across the weekend – taking machinery out of the equation
Our experts’ scores are then averaged out to produce a race score – with those scores then tallied up across the season on our overall Power Rankings Leaderboard (at the bottom of the page)

Norris entered the F1 summer break looking to “reset”, having been extremely self-critical regarding certain situations – in particular during race starts – over the first half of the season. While the start again proved problematic at Zandvoort, with the pole-sitter losing the qualifying advantage he had so brilliantly earned by dropping behind Verstappen, he soon recovered the situation to close back in, reclaim the lead and leave the home hero in his wake. A statement performance.

Charles Leclerc cut a frustrated figure after qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix, lamenting that “I keep repeating myself” given the struggles Ferrari have been going through. However, the Monegasque got his head down to turn sixth on the grid into a superb third on race day, clearing Sergio Perez at the start and under-cutting both George Russell and Oscar Piastri in the pits – expertly keeping the latter at bay in the closing stages despite ageing tyres.

Pierre Gasly was another star of the Zandvoort weekend as he dragged his Alpine into Q3 and then bagged valuable points with a particularly determined performance. Bouncing back from struggles on Friday, the Frenchman qualified ninth and defended the position on race day via some thrilling battles, a result that gave Oliver Oakes something to cheer about in his first event as team boss.

Verstappen sent the home crowd wild by slotting ahead of Norris when the lights went out, but as mentioned above, his time at the front was short-lived. With the McLaren package again proving to be faster than Red Bull’s, Verstappen admitted that he simply “tried to be second” and limit the damage. In that sense, it was job done for the reigning three-time world champion.

Carlos Sainz endured a nightmare start to the Dutch Grand Prix weekend when a gearbox issue took him out of what proved to be the only dry practice session. With drivers needing to get back into a rhythm after the summer break, it went a long way to explaining the Q2 exit he endured in qualifying. On race day, though, the Spaniard delivered an assured drive to work his way up the order, finish fifth and add another solid chunk to Ferrari’s points tally.

F1 NATION: An emphatic victory for McLaren as Verstappen tastes defeat on home soil – it’s our Dutch GP review

It was also a challenging start at Zandvoort for Nico Hulkenberg, who twice slid into the barriers in practice amid complaints of brake problems. He put those behind him to secure a midfield starting position and looked set to convert that into some points via an ambitious one-stop strategy – having pitted early for fresh tyres. However, his rubber faded in the final laps and he agonisingly slipped out of the top-10 places.

Another driver who missed out on points but still made the top half of our Power Rankings list is Alex Albon. After qualifying a brilliant eighth, Albon’s car was excluded from qualifying over a rule breach related to a new floor body on the heavily upgraded Williams, sending him all the way to the back of the field. From there, he put up a fight and at one stage ran in the points-paying positions, but it did not quite work out – driver and team left to rue what might have been.

Behind McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin found themselves in a battle to be ‘best of the rest’ at Zandvoort. It was the Spaniard who managed that in qualifying, taking advantage of Sainz and Lewis Hamilton’s Q2 exits to secure seventh on the grid. In the race, a compromised start saw Alonso get jumped by Gasly, while recoveries from Sainz and Hamilton left the two-time world champion 10th at the chequered flag.

Hamilton declared that his weekend was “done” after a surprise Q2 elimination in the Netherlands, with matters made worse when the stewards gave him a three-place grid penalty for impeding Perez. However, the Mercedes man went on a charge in the race to go from 14th to eighth and finish only a few seconds behind team mate George Russell, who started fourth.

While Norris charged to pole and victory, it was a more challenging weekend for team mate Oscar Piastri. He had to settle for third in qualifying, behind Norris and Verstappen, and dropped to fourth at the start when Russell got his nose ahead. Completing a much longer first stint gave Piastri a temporary lead, but the Australian tumbled down the order to fifth when he eventually pitted, and could only reclaim one spot on his fresher tyres.

Missing out

Russell only just missed the cut in our latest Power Rankings list, having come home seventh after his second-row start. There were also near-misses for Sergio Perez, who showed some signs of improvement in his Red Bull en route to P6, and the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll, who lined up inside the top-10 but finished outside it via a pit lane speeding penalty.

Power-Rankings-OVERALL-Driver-Standings-Top-10-DUTCH.png

POWER RANKINGS: Who impressed our judges at Zandvoort as F1 burst back into life after the summer break?

How it works

Missing out

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Coming Up