Lando Norris, Andrea Stella reflects on unfortunate end to F1 Dutch GP, as Ferrari trio of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Frederic Vasseur speak on their own misery.
It was looking good for all three in F1 Dutch GP at Zandvoort. Even though McLaren’s Norris was running second, he had Oscar Piastri in his sights and even if he was to finish second, the points gap would have been far less than 34 due to the Brit’s second non-finish in points of 2025.
Neither Norris nor team boss Stella could pin point the issue as they simply resorted to oil leak memento. The Italian didn’t wish to segregate it as a chassis issue or power unit problem. But he was pleased to see how the Brit reacted to the unfortunate end to his grand prix and loss of points.
Norris agreed that it was a frustrating moment, but it was nothing he could control. The Brit now sees the title battle as ‘nothing to lose’ situation and so, he feels he can go for it. He also added on the Lap 1 fight against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who passed him with a twitch at Turn 3.
On the other hand, Ferrari’s Hamilton was in an upbeat mood despite the crash. The Brit felt bad for the team considering how good he felt in the car. He was chasing Mercedes’ George Russell in the battle for fifth and looked to be in a better shape to get it after Leclerc pushed through him.
Team boss Vasseur highlighted the positive mood he found Hamilton in, even though it was not as good on Thursday, following on from the last two weekends before the summer break. He noted the progress that Ferrari made from worst Friday and praised the co-operation between drivers and engineers.
He shared his thoughts on Leclerc’s incident with Russell and also Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Vasseur revealed that the Italian came to apologise to Leclerc but the Monegasque was not there and so the Frenchman accepted on his behalf and praised the youngster for showing humility.
Leclerc, meanwhile, put the blame on Antonelli. He didn’t wish to term it as a rookie mistake, but a normal mistake that any F1 driver can make. He thought the strategy didn’t matter as much as it ended with the crash. He elaborated on the Russell move, which was deemed racing incident eventually.
What happened –
Norris: “It wasn’t my fault, so there’s nothing I can really do. It’s just not my weekend. A little bit unlucky yesterday with the wind [in qualifying] and unlucky today. So, nothing much, out of my control. Tough one. Of course, it’s frustrating. It hurts a bit for sure in a championship point of view. It’s a lot of points to lose so quickly and so easily. There’s nothing that I can control now, I just take it on the chin and move on. There’s nothing the team told me or said. I think it was pretty instant as well. I don’t know what the actual issue was even. The engine just shut off and that was it.”
Stella: “So we have some initial indications based on the data, but in fairness, we don’t have full proof of what has happened on Lando’s car, so I would refrain from making any speculation about it’s a problem on the chassis side or it’s a problem on the engine side. In fairness, it doesn’t make, in terms of the result, it doesn’t make a big difference. Even in how this is perceived, let me say, I want to take the opportunity to remind ourselves that we just see a chassis engine as a single one team. So we will see technically where the problem is, we will fix it and we will go again, but at the moment it’s unclear on which side the problem is.”
Leclerc: “I think it’s a mistake from Kimi. You’ve got to be very aggressive on a track like this to overtake, which I think he tried to be aggressive. Maybe it was a bit too much, and he went on to touch my rear left, and that was the end of my race, so it’s disappointing. I wouldn’t describe it as a rookie mistake, I think it’s just a mistake which can happen in the first year or the fifth year. Again, as I said, on a track like this, you need to be aggressive, but that was too much.”
Vasseur: “First, yes, he came. He came to apologise to Charles. Charles was not there, but he came to me. Honestly, I appreciate this because this can happen. I think it’s not so easy to overtake in Zandvoort. It means that you also have to take risks. He took a risk, he made a mistake. To come and say, guys, sorry, my mistake, I think it’s a good reaction. I think it’s also a race incident for me that when you are in this situation, you know that you have one or two attempts maximum.”
Inevitable to have an issue –
Norris: “Not even, the team and HPP have done a good job over the last two years. I think we’ve had pretty much minimal [issues] – this might be the first one that I can remember, that’s cost us any points or anything at all. It is not even inevitable at this point because we expect and everyone works just high standards. We don’t expect anything really. It is just we are unlucky, it’s not like in the olden days where you used to pretty much blow up every other race. Then it is inevitable but this we don’t expect it now a days. It’s just… yeah, frustrating, unlucky, and that’s it.”
Stella: “Yeah, reliability has been a strong point at McLaren for a long time. We have had today what looks like a technical reliability problem, which is always disappointing. But I would say that it’s even more inconvenient because it affects a situation in which we as a team, we wanted to stay as neutral as possible in what is the driver’s individual quest in the Drivers’ Championship. So it’s not ideal that we had a problem with the car, but that’s what it is. The whole team will process this, trying to take the learning, reviewing the problem, fixing it, and making sure that this is not a factor anymore for the future, not only for the remainder of the Championship, even if obviously this is the main focus for the moment.”
Lap 1 scene –
Norris: “As soon as I knew Max was on the softs, I knew there is a good chance he was going to come past. Again, my situation with a decent start, I had a dodgy upshift into third, which cost me my momentum. Otherwise, I think I had a slightly better one than Oscar. Then I was just on the inside. I couldn’t really get left. Oscar then drifted high, so I could come inside. I knew Max would go for it in Turn 2. It was a close one. But I also knew my pace was going to be much stronger, so I didn’t really have anything to worry about.”
What can be done in title picture –
Norris: “The only thing I can do is try to win every race! That’s going to be difficult, but I’ll make sure I give it everything I can. I thought honestly this weekend was good, it wasn’t by ever much, and I didn’t lose out by much in quali, but I felt always pretty on top of things, and a couple little areas to improve on. But if it wasn’t for a little gust of wind down the start/finish yesterday, I’d be on pole, and I’m sure the race would have looked a bit different today. The pace was very strong today. So there are so many positives. It’s just close. I have a good teammate.
“He’s strong, he’s quick in every situation, every scenario. So it’s hard to get things back on someone who’s just good in pretty much every situation. But today is a different situation. It’s just unlucky. It’s not my fault, and sometimes that’s just racing. It certainly hasn’t helped the [title] race. It’s only made it harder for me, and put me under more pressure. But it’s almost a big enough gap now that I can just chill out about it and just go for it.”
Stella: “Well, we talk about Lando, he’s one of the most fair, balanced, in a way I would almost say trustworthy individual before being so as a driver. So when he says he’s going to be full commitment or whatever he said, it just means that if anything he will try to extract out of himself even more from his incredible potential. I look forward to seeing what Lando will be conditioned to express because we know that his talent is immense and I’m sure this situation in the championship will give him extra motivation to try and extract it. When it comes to the team, what’s important is that the team keeps racing in the same way we have gone racing so far, so staying as neutral as possible, facilitating the pursuit of their own aspirations for Lando and Oscar in a balanced way, in a fair way, in a sportsman-like way and that’s what we will continue to do. I don’t think there’s any change in the approach of the team that is triggered based on the fact that we have this situation in Zandvoort.
“I think Lando has already proven in the message that he gave from the radio, while he was still in the car, he has already proven that he is processing the situation and he kept immediately his constructive mindset. He said ‘that’s just out of our control. It’s just a bad luck incident. Nothing we could do. We will keep fighting’. So he has already said himself and I wouldn’t be surprised otherwise. He is a very mature person. Like I said before, a very fair and a very balanced driver. We will give, if anything, maximum support to make sure that he is staying in the fighting spirit. But like we said before, I think this will come very naturally. And if anything, we may see even a better version of Lando because now is the time to extract, if there is anything more, even more out of his potential. So I look forward to seeing Lando in the coming races. I’m sure this is going to be a great spectacle for Formula 1 and if anything, it’s going to make the competition with Oscar even more interesting.”
Strategy –
Hamilton: “Yeah, I didn’t really want the undercut necessarily at that time, I was just saying that we would have to probably try and undercut them at some point. Yeah, I wanted to go long, and so my tyres were still feeling good. That took me by complete surprise what just happened there. I’d lost the rear end at the bank and then that was it. Apart from that, it’s been a really solid weekend, and we made lots of, I felt like I made progress, just overall, my approach and everything, and so to come away with nothing is definitely painful.”
Leclerc: “The tyres weren’t too bad, however I think the out-lap of Kimi was probably very strong. So I think the team decided to pit me because they thought that he would probably get past us again. At the end, I was frustrated for what had just happened, but I don’t think the strategy is the big talking point today. I think it’s just Kimi’s mistake that threw out every effort we had in the bin. I don’t think it was wrong….by finishing the race, it was then only, we would have known whether it was a good choice or not. We didn’t because of the crash with Kimi, so it’s a bit difficult to know.”
Vasseur: “Yes and no. It’s always easy to have a different view on the strategy after the race. Honestly, that it was the only way we had to fight with Hadjar at this stage, to have a different option or at least try to undercut. And I think it was the right call at this stage. But now, for sure, when you see the outlap, you can have a different perception of this. This, I don’t have the crystal ball. You know when you are in this situation, you spend a couple of laps behind someone, you over-integrate everything, and I think that at one stage we had to ask Charles to give up a little bit to avoid to over-integrate everything.
“I had the feeling that even if we were not on the same strategy as Max, that we were matching Max more or less, and Hajar was there. Clearly, the pace was very strong and very consistent. The only reference I would say is more Mercedes, because we were alone with Mercedes. We were able to overtake Mercedes. I think it’s more on this one that we can make a comparison now to know if we were able to do one or two or three tenths more.”
Mindset –
Hamilton: “I feel okay, I feel okay. Yeah, I’m sad for the team as I said, because I really wanted to get those points for the team today, and I honestly felt like I had the pace on the cars ahead of me, so I was hoping to see real progress in the race, and then that happened. I was hoping to save it, but I didn’t. No, I’ll get over it by tomorrow, get back on it next week. I feel fine mentally. As I said, I felt lots of positives, it looked like I was making progress from the car ahead. Yeah, it is tough to have a result like that for sure. I have been racing for so long, don’t know how many races I have…you can probably count in one hand that sort of incident.”
Vasseur: “Not really. I think that this one was a bit of a special one. The track was a bit damp during the first race. It was a bit wider than the lap before. But now we need to investigate if something happened in the car or not. But I don’t think so. But overall, the reaction from Lewis was good. He was into the pace of the car and of Charles from the beginning of the weekend. He was catching up Russell at this stage. It was a good recovery after two tough races before the break. But for sure, the outcome is not what I expected. The fact that he was quiet on Thursday, I think it’s quite easy to understand that he had two tough weekends before the break. It was difficult for him. If we suffered on Friday, it was more on the car side than something else.
“They were very collaborative and pushing and trying to find solutions to recover. They are really part of this recovery. I can be more than pleased with the job done. The pace today from Lewis was a good one. He was stuck behind Russell, but he did the job. He lost the car. Overall, on the weekend, I would say, if you consider this, I think the contribution of Lewis was very good. Yeah, but honestly, after we discussed after the race, he was, I would say, much more positive than the last four or five events. The fact that he was in the pace, able to fight with Russell, that we recovered from the tough Friday. The mood was very positive, for sure. He lost the car, for sure. But the mood was positive because I think he can take a lot of positives from the weekend and build up the confidence for Monza.”
Russell fight –
Leclerc: “It was aggressive, but we’re fighting for a place in the championship. For the Constructors’, especially. For the Drivers’, I don’t really care, so I’ll always be aggressive like that. It was on the limit, but I knew I wouldn’t have many opportunities after that. He defended the inside, I went for the outside, I don’t think he expected me to go for the outside, and then he did the corner just like if I wasn’t there, so then we touched. I mean, I don’t know what the stewards are looking at or what they are expecting from the incident, so I’ll go and see them and then we’ll see. It’s always better to have a live decision, but I understand that sometimes it’s not a clear-cut.”
Vasseur: “For sure that we always said that we prefer to have the penalty during the race. For the podium, if you have to do something with the podium, it’s always better to have the decision during the race. But I think this one was not a clear cut. Also that Charles moved under the braking. I think he was expecting that Charles will go on the right-hand side and then on the left-hand side. And perhaps it was not a clear cut for the stewards. But let’s see what is the outcome.”
Weekend overall, progress –
Leclerc: “We can see positives in every situation but I’ll rather look at it…it was a very disappointing weekend. We were struggling from FP1 to quali, in the race it has been better, especially after the holidays to have a Friday like we had, we cannot afford to have any other Friday like that because that definitely have an influence on rest of the weekend.”
Vasseur: “Honestly, we had the worst Friday of the last three years. If you have a look at the pace of Friday, it was very, very difficult. Nothing worked at all. Thanks to the job done by the engineers, but also by the drivers, because they were very cooperative. They were pushing everybody in the right way. It was a very collaborative Friday evening. We had a very good recovery on Saturday. It was not enough to fight with McLaren, but we are not far away. Today, we were in a good pace, in a good shape. I think it’s also thanks to the job done by Lewis over the weekend and by Charles, that they are part of the team in a good and bad moment. The recovery was a good phase of the weekend.”
Here’s racing between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-grand-prix-norris-snatches-p2-back-from-verstappen-on-lap-9.1841978704408042128
Here’s end of Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-grand-prix-heartbreak-for-norris-who-retires-from-p2-with-seven-laps-to-go.1841982664922288425
Here’s crash for Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-grand-prix-hamilton-crashes-out-of-the-race.1841980414307308992
Here’s racing between Charles Leclerc and George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-grand-prix-leclerc-muscles-his-way-past-russell-with-gritty-move-for-p5.1841981152863610625
Here’s Charles Leclerc taken out by Andrea Kimi Antonelli: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-dutch-grand-prix-leclerc-crashes-out-after-antonelli-spins-the-ferrari-into-the-wall.1841986441442161254
Here’s how F1 Dutch GP panned out
