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Oracle Red Bull Racing’s weekend fill-in driver Liam Lawson delivered his best drive of the 2026 Formula One season to date to score seventh place in the final Dutch Grand Prix at Circuit Zandvoort, as home hero Max Verstappen crashed out of the race on the opening lap.
After a pre-race rain shower, the Grand Prix got underway with the Circuit Zandvoort surface damp and just a few corners into the race, four-time world champion Verstappen fell foul of the conditions as he suffered a huge crash that destroyed his RB22 and forced a red flag situation.
Fortunately, Verstappen walked away unscathed from the accident, but a 40-minute delay was needed to clear the debris from the circuit before racing could resume.
From there, Lawson, who started the race from eighth on the grid, drove a solid race to bring the second RB22 home in seventh place after McLaren driver Lando Norris claimed victory.
Further down the field, Visa Cash App Racing Bulls stand-in driver Yuki Tsunoda just missed the points in his first competitive drive of 2026 so far in 11th place, while rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad finished just one position behind in 12th, missing the points for the first time in seven races.
QUOTES
Oracle Red Bull Racing
LIAM LAWSON – 7th
“It was a pretty lonely race for me today. We just didn’t have the pace to fight with the guys in front so it was tricky. I’m happy I got points for the team. I knew coming into the weekend it’d be difficult, especially at a circuit like Zandvoort, where you need a lot of confidence in the car, but I feel like we extracted everything we could. It was a shame to see what happened to Max. That part of the track was incredibly slippery and on slick tyres it was so easy to lose the car there. I was right behind him, so it was a pretty scary moment. I’m glad he’s okay. It’s never easy stepping into an entirely new car, but the team did a good job in making me feel comfortable and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
MAX VERSTAPPEN – DNF
“It was a shame how my race ended today, but I’m all okay. It looked like it was dry in that spot, so I tried to accelerate and it just caught me out. I was a bit unlucky, lost the car and went into the wall, unfortunately. We didn’t have the pace this weekend to fight for the win, which is something that we still need to work on. I have mixed emotions, as it was positive seeing so many fans here for one final time, but a huge shame and quite disappointing to not finish the race. Luckily, we have such positive memories here and were able to achieve great things at this track, so I want to thank the fans for all the support. It has been something really special and I hope they have enjoyed it as well over all these years.”
LAURENT MEKIES – CEO & Team Principal
“A difficult weekend for the team in Zandvoort. First of all, I think the most important thing is that Max is okay. It was a pretty big shunt and we were all glad to see him get out of the car unharmed. That’s what matters the most. Performance-wise, there’s nowhere to hide. It was a very tough weekend and it seems like we’ve taken a bit of a step backwards compared to where we were before the summer break. Of course, we’ll never know what the real pace of the car would have been in the race with Max, but it’s fair to say that as the sessions progressed it was clearly more difficult for us than in Austria, Belgium or in Hungary.
“Beyond that, Liam did a good job stepping into Isack’s car this weekend. It’s never easy to step into a different team and different car, but he did very well. He was just one tenth away from Max yesterday in qualifying and today took he the points that were available to him with the seventh place. Even though he wasn’t in the cockpit, Isack was with us this weekend, taking the learnings from it, and that will help us to all push together as strongly for the next race.
“A lot of work for us to do, to regroup and to see whether the competition has done a better job on upgrades, or whether something has limited us more than it should have here in Zandvoort. That will be the task over the next two weeks, before we fight back in Monza.”
