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Max Verstappen’s Dutch Grand Prix ended in a first-lap crash after the four-time world champion lost control at the banked final corner, triggering a red flag and punctuating a difficult weekend for Red Bull.
Verstappen started seventh after feeling unwell throughout the weekend. He made a reasonable getaway but was squeezed onto the grass in a four-wide run towards Turn 1. Red Bull stand-in Liam Lawson then challenged him through the following corners, a contest Verstappen considered entirely fair. “We are allowed to race, so I think that’s normal,” he said.
The Dutchman retained seventh place, but the track remained difficult. A rain shower around 50 minutes before the start had left parts of the circuit damp, and two drivers lost control at the final corner on the opening lap. Gabriel Bortoleto recovered from a 360-degree spin without damage; Verstappen did not, hitting the barriers heavily.
“The start is just a consequence of what is happening on the right. It’s OK, it can happen,” Verstappen explained. “Then, yeah, I got caught out. It was still quite wet in that corner, and as soon as I saw the dry patch coming, I was like, ‘Now you can accelerate’, but clearly that didn’t work. So probably it was still a bit too early.”
He described the impact as “a decent hit”, while adding that he had experienced worse. The incident nevertheless brought an early end to his home event and left Red Bull with a major recovery task.
The result completed Red Bull’s worst grand prix since the April break, with Lawson its leading car in seventh. Verstappen also acknowledged that the team lacked the pace to challenge McLaren, Ferrari or Mercedes, making the weekend’s competitive picture clear rather than surprising.
“I wish for more, but you need to be realistic this season,” Verstappen said. “We are the fourth-fastest team, so it’s not like walking up to Zandvoort and suddenly we can do some magic things.”
He attributed the deficit to the development race, noting that rival teams had introduced upgrades while Red Bull had not. That assessment follows Verstappen’s earlier comments on feeling unwell at the Dutch Grand Prix, which had already complicated his weekend.
Verstappen now plans to use the two-week gap before the Italian Grand Prix to recover. “I’m just looking forward to a break where I can just recover also, because I really didn’t feel good,” he said.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.