Max Verstappen’s 2026 Dutch Grand Prix came to a screeching halt after the Dutchman crashed at the final corner of Circuit Zandvoort on the opening lap.Rain covered the track less than an hour before the race began, but with the sun poking out before lights out and a dry spell happening, the grid opted to start on slick tires. A lap was done behind the safety car before a standing start occurred.Everyone appeared to get off the line relatively well, but Red Bull drivers Verstappen and Liam Lawson — who was standing in for an injured Isack Hadjar — came close at one point. The two are free to race, the Dutchman confirmed post-race, but disaster struck several turns later.When running seventh, Verstappen lost control of his car on the banked corner, slamming into the barriers before skidding across the track. He described it as “a decent hit.”“It was still quite wet, and as soon as I saw the dry patch coming, I was like, ‘Now you can accelerate,’ and clearly that didn’t work,” he explained. “So it was a bit too early.”Team principal Laurent Mekies said after the race: “The most important thing is that Max is okay. It was a pretty big shunt, and we are all glad to see that he’s out of the car, unharmed, and that’s what matters the most today.”Verstappen wasn’t the only one who spun at that spot on that lap. Near-simultaneously, Gabriel Bortoleto also spun but caught his Audi before he hit the barriers — and teammate Nico Hülkenberg had to use quick reflexes to not T-bone the Brazilian driver.The Dutch GP ended up being Red Bull’s lowest-scoring race since the Japanese GP in March. The Milton Keynes-based team has consistently finished a race weekend in double-digit points, but it left Zandvoort with just nine points — three from Verstappen in the sprint race and six from Lawson in the race thanks to his seventh-place finish.Red Bull lacked the pace to the other top four teams, and Verstappen called it “a disappointing weekend.”“Of course, I wish I could have done a little bit more in the race, but looking at the pace we were showing, I don’t think it was really possible,” he said. “Hopefully in Monza, we can be a little more competitive.”Mekies said Red Bull seems to have taken a step backwards, performance-wise, compared to how it was performing pre-summer break. He added: “We’ll never know what the real pace of the car in the race will have been with Max. But it’s fair to say that session after session, it looked more difficult than it was in Budapest or in Spa or in Austria.”Red Bull will look to see if it was limited at Zandvoort in some way or if the other teams have upgraded their cars better, according to Mekies.The lackluster weekend comes after Red Bull announced Verstappen’s new contract, which keeps him with the team through 2030.