Norris on the podium
The Sprint of the Dutch Grand Prix race actually offered little spectacle to fans, who witnessed a 24-lap event poor in overtakes. One of these, decisive for the final second position, was completed by Charles Leclerc at the expense of Lando Norris. The reigning world champion, who started from the front row behind poleman Russell, was unable to defend his position from the Ferrari Monegasque, thus climbing onto the third step of the podium.
Read more Sprint data: Mercedes does well but with Leclerc Ferrari is convincing
The problems of the MCL40
As if that were not enough, in the last laps Antonelli also closed the gap on #1, who seemed indeed dissatisfied in the FIA press conference reserved for the top three finishers: “We simply did not have the pace overall, especially in low-speed corners – he admitted – we suffer a lot compared to others, and it has been evident throughout the weekend so far. We can’t do anything about it; the car is very good at high speed, but not enough in the lower speed sectors. Maintaining the pace was very difficult, you can’t overpush in the high-speed sectors during the race, so we can’t exploit our strengths. Here our weaknesses are more exposed, and that’s why our pace wasn’t good enough today. We can’t do anything to improve the situation ahead of qualifying, otherwise we would have already done it.”
Read more Dutch GP 2026, Qualifying: Q1 starts at 16:00 – LIVE
The paradox with Budapest
Problems that, in part, were also seen in the last Hungarian Grand Prix, where Norris had nevertheless achieved his first win of the season. The obstacles encountered at Zandvoort were not a surprise for the reigning champion: “No, absolutely not. In Budapest we were very strong in high-speed corners, while we were very weak in low-speed corners, but we still managed to win. Here there are more very slow corners and our problems are more exposed, but I am absolutely not surprised, it is exactly what we expected“.
