McLaren strategy genius as Lando Norris Dutch GP telemetry data emerges

Picking up right where he left off in the first half of the season, Lando Norris continues his momentum into the second half. Alongside Kimi Antonelli, he becomes the only driver with back-to-back victories in the 2026 season.

How patience paid off for Norris in the Netherlands, we discover with the help of telemetry data.

Lando Norris delivers champion’s drive at Dutch GP

When it comes to the Dutch Grand Prix, the data is clear – every single time since its return to the calendar in 2021, the driver starting from P1 has triumphed here. Therefore, even before the race began, Lando Norris had a race to lose here.

And that is precisely what started happening right at the start. During the second standing start, Norris suffered a poor getaway, allowing the young Italian Antonelli to pass him into Turn 1. The segment that was his biggest weakness in the first half of the season was used by Antonelli to snatch the lead of the race.

Running on medium tyres in clean air, Antonelli held the upper hand over Norris, who was on softs – a tyre choice made following lessons learned during the Sprint race, which showed that the softs could match the mediums in terms of durability.

Up until the first pit stops, the Mercedes driver was on average 0.1 seconds per lap faster, building his advantage exclusively in Sector 1 and Sector 3, just as he did during qualifying.

Both drivers pitted on the same lap, Lap 22, after which virtually the same scenario continued as at the start of the race. Norris remained stuck within a second, but was never quite fast enough to launch a move and make the pass.

Consequently, the team decided to make their move via strategy.

Namely, as seen during the Sprint race, McLaren possessed exceptionally strong pace and solid tyre degradation. Thus, they opted to extend Norris’s stint, securing fresher rubber for the final stages of the race.

This proved to be the right call. Even prior to the race, it was clear that the overcut would be a more potent weapon than the undercut, particularly when battling for the lead. The primary reason comes down to the track layout itself.

At Zandvoort, grip delta is what creates overtaking opportunities, especially on the exit of the final corner, rather than raw straight-line speed.

With clear track ahead, Norris drove impeccably, and the gap Antonelli was building on new tyres was minimal, as seen on the graph below.

Norris extended his stint by 7 laps, re-joining just under 5 seconds behind Antonelli after his stop. He wiped out this deficit in a mere 3 laps.

On fresh hards, Norris was blistering fast, as the telemetry demonstrates – notice the massive difference in apex speeds through virtually every corner on the circuit.

Despite Lewis Hamilton ending up directly ahead of Antonelli at that crucial moment, Norris reclaimed the lead with ease, after which the outcome of the race was practically beyond doubt.

When the Virtual Safety Car was deployed on Lap 55, Antonelli took advantage to switch to softs in an attempt to recover the lost position. However, even with the compound advantage, Norris was matching Kimi’s lap times easily.

More Dutch GP analysis via PlanetF1.com

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It was an utterly dominant drive in the second half of the race, proving that the latest upgrade packages brought by McLaren are working exceptionally well. With McLaren performing at this level, Norris appears to have entered the role as the primary potential challenger to Antonelli’s championship campaign.

That Mercedes are acutely aware of the threat is evidenced by the moment George Russell received a team order to let Antonelli past. The Mercedes squad know full well what decisions must be made if a championship title is to be won.

However, we have only just kicked off the second half of the season, and it remains to be seen whether Norris can pull off what Max did last year, or if Mercedes will manage to hold onto the crown.

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