Welcome to Telegraph Sport’s live coverage of the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix. After much anticipation and hope of one of the closest seasons in Formula One history, 2025 has turned into a straight battle between the two McLaren drivers. Red Bull have won two races and Mercedes one, but beyond that it has been Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri taking honours.
That looks almost certain to be the case at Zandvoort this weekend but at least the margins are close. Yesterday the gap was 0.012sec between the pair in qualifying with Piastri pulling a lap out of the bag when it mattered. The Australian leads Norris by just nine points with 14 rounds gone. Can he extend that further in the first race after the summer break?
You would say that Norris likely needs to get him off the line to do that but it is a short run down to turn one. There is a strategic option too – and that is how he ended up (surprisingly) winning in Hungary last time round. Either way, it seems unlikely that either McLaren driver will get too far away from their team-mate in the standings. It would be nice to see the season go down to the wire.
Elsewhere, Max Verstappen pulled out one of the laps of the day to get within 0.3sec of the McLarens, whilst Isack Hadjar put in a career-best fourth to line up alongside Verstappen on the second row. He may well be lining up in the other Red Bull garage next year.
