RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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F1 Correspondent in Zandvoort Published 41 minutes ago Lando Norris and McLaren beat Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli to take a masterful strategic victory in a compelling Dutch Grand Prix.
A topsy-turvy race started amid chaos as Max Verstappen crashed his Red Bull at high speed on a damp track at the end of the first lap, leading to a red flag.
Antonelli took the lead from Norris at the restart, but through two pit stops, Norris built a tyre offset to fight back and pass Antonelli for the win.
Lewis Hamilton was leading the race at the time, just ahead of the battling pair, out of sync on his pit stops, but Norris went past him further around the same lap to take the lead on track.
A late virtual safety car led to some team orders controversy at Mercedes as George Russell was ordered to let Antonelli past into second place, leaving him vulnerable to Hamilton.
But Russell, with help from a further late virtual safety car to allow marshals to recover debris on track, held Hamilton off to take the final podium position.
Further back, Fernando Alonso earned Aston Martin-Honda their first points since the incident-strewn Monaco race with an excellent drive on a one-stop strategy to ninth place.
The result leaves Antonelli with a 59-point championship lead over Russell, the gap unchanged from before the weekend.
Russell is on the same points as Hamilton, but classified ahead by virtue of his two wins to Hamilton's one. Norris, after his second consecutive victory, closes to 83 points off the lead, and now has to be a feint contender for the title if McLaren can keep their momentum.
The key stories of the first race after Formula 1's summer break were:
Antonelli tightening his grip on the title by beating both his closest rivals.
Team orders unhappiness at both Mercedes and Ferrari
Further evidence that Aston Martin are making progress at last.
Antonelli looked to have taken control of the race as he cycled from third on the initial grid to the lead after two standing starts punctuated by a long delay because of Verstappen's crash.
The Italian passed Russell for second behind pole-sitter Norris at the first start as the Briton was slowed by the inside of the grid being damper than the outside after a shower of rain.
But the race was stopped after Verstappen had an almighty accident at the end of the first lap.
Running too low through the flat-out final corner, Verstappen's inside wheels caught the wet painted line and he lost the rear, sending him nose first into the outside wall.
Behind him, Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto also lost control, but somehow he spun while staying on the track and was able to resume.
Verstappen was unhurt and climbed out with no problems as the field reformed in the pits while the track was cleared.
At the restart, the track now dry after a period of sunshine, Antonelli got the jump on Norris and moved into the lead.
Given his dominance at times this year, and the comfortable victory Russell had taken over Norris in the sprint on Saturday, that appeared to put the championship leader in control of the race.
The pair made their first pit stops together on lap 21, resuming in second and third place behind Hamilton, who delayed his stop by a further four laps.
But in the second stint, Norris came into his own. He closed in on Antonelli initially, and let the gap to within two seconds by the time the Mercedes driver made his second pit stop on lap 40.
This was Norris' chance. McLaren waited a further seven laps to make his stop and he rejoined only 4.8 seconds behind the Mercedes.
The pair closed on Hamilton together and the three were running nose to tail by lap 52. Two laps later, Antonelli feinted a move down the inside of Hamilton, but it didn't come off, and it left a space for Norris to leave his braking as late as possible on the clean outside line.
From there, he sailed around the outside of the Mercedes around the long, banked first corner, known as Tarzan, and set off after the Ferrari.
An error by Hamilton through Turn 10 later around the lap gave Norris a run out of the corner, and he drove past the Ferrari on the outside line into the chicane that followed.
That was the race won by Norris, even if there was a bit of jeopardy as McLaren chose not to pit under the VSC while all those bar Russell behind him did, but in the end he had more than enough in hand.
Antonelli passed Hamilton shortly after Norris just before a virtual safety car was called when Esteban Ocon's Haas stopped beside the track after Turn Three, and Hamilton and Antonelli both stopped for fresh tyres.
Hamilton had earlier complained about the team not asking his team-mate Charles Leclerc to let him by as he was trying to optimise his second stint and they were on different strategies.
And as Leclerc also stopped under the VSC, Antonelli, Hamilton and Leclerc all found themselves closing on Russell, who had not stopped.
Mercedes ordered Russell to let Antonelli by when he caught them, a request he fought against at the time, as he had wanted the pair to work together to protect him from the Ferraris.
Russell warned the team that they were risking a podium, and they probably would have lost it had it not been for a second VSC with two laps to go just as Hamilton was about to attack Russell.
The race did restart not long afterwards, but the breathing space it gave Russell was enough to secure the final podium place ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc.
Oscar Piastri took sixth in the second McLaren, ahead of Liam Lawson's Red Bull and Nico Hulkenberg's Audi.
Behind them, Alonso, who started 18th in the Aston Martin with its new Honda engine after a difficult qualifying session, had driven a masterful race.
The veteran Spaniard, who has still not decided whether to continue in F1 next year, ran a super-long 34-lap stint on soft tyres at the start, before switching to hards.
The final stages of the race saw him fighting to stay ahead of Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Racing Bulls'...
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