Dutch Grand Prix

Sprinting by the seasideSprinting by the seaside

2026 SEASON

A different kind of bank holiday

F1 is back from summer break and off to Zandvoort. We're refreshed, recharged, and brimming with enthusiasm for the final 11 races of the season

A sea of orange, sand dunes and spectacular banked corners, the Dutch Grand Prix has become famed for its exhilarating festival atmosphere as much as its racing since its return to the calendar in 2021.

We've also got Mathilda Paatz in action this weekend as F1 ACADEMY returns to the track. While the famous Zandvoort circuit – the shortest permanent circuit on the current calendar – is a little tight and twisty for F1, it's absolutely perfect for the F1 ACADEMY cars, so expect to see great racing this weekend.

Session Times

FP1

SPR

Quali

Race

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

The banking at the end of the circuit is very special. The change of elevation is unbelievable and provides possibilities to overtake.

Mari Boya – Driver Academy member

Circuit length
4.259km
Number of corners
14
Race distance
306.587km

NEED TO KNOW: DUTCH GP

The essential Netherlands travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Circuit Zandvoort

The magic of racing at the Zandvoort

Ultimate Dutch Grand Prix facts

The essential Netherlands travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

While the North Sea weather can give the Dutch Grand Prix a bit of a buffeting, the same traits make this part of the world a popular spot for watersports, with boating, kitesurfing and paddleboarding enjoying huge participation – best at this time of year, where water temperatures are reaching their warmest. Sheltered lakes provide good nursery conditions, but for those with a bit more experience, heading up the coast from Zandvoort to the West Frisian Islands and the Wadden Sea provides rather more of a challenge.

If the grandstands have provided enough salt air, then Zandvoort isn't very far from the big city. The Dutch Grand Prix isn't classed as a city race, but to all intents and purposes, this patch of North Holland is part of Amsterdam's metropolitan belt, with trains to and from the city centre every 15 minutes. It's perfectly possible to be back from the track and into the heart of the city before nightfall – but realistically tacking a couple of extra days onto a Dutch Grand Prix trip is a worthwhile expenditure of time..

The city is, of course, famed for its museums: The Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the modern art-oriented Stedelijk are all found on the appropriately-monikered Museum Square, while Rembrandt's house is closer to the centre of the city. There is also the Tulip Museum and, for those prepared to venture further afield, historic windmill tours. On the other hand, there are plenty of tours willing to explore alternative Amsterdam, with its leading-edge music scene and vibrant nightlife.

Whatever you wish to see, the best way to do it is from Amsterdam's concentric canal rings. The Grachtengordel, with its four main arteries of Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht and their 1,500 bridges form a UNESCO World Heritage site and are both tourist attractions and working waterways at the same time: there are luxurious canal cruises, but also hop-on, hop-off services around the city, allowing anyone with a few hours spare to see Amsterdam at its elegant best from the water.

Mastering Circuit Zandvoort

Zandvoort is narrow and it is twisty. It's a high downforce track and there is barely a straight line in sight. The high-speed Scheivlak corner is one of F1's all-time greats – though there are a few bumps to negotiate that provide the metaphorical headache for race engineers and the real thing for the drivers. The new, for 2021, banked sections of track do their job and ensure the Dutch Grand Prix isn't a procession – but it's still a very tough circuit on which to overtake.

The circuit is… quirky. Most of the corners are right-handers, which makes for very uneven tyre wear; the dunes and grandstands shelter some parts of the circuit but not all, which means wind speed, which is usually high, and direction have a great influence on the performance of the cars. It also influences the grip level, with sand blown onto the track making the sessions early in the day something of a sweeping exercise.

Zandvoort also features one of the shortest pit lanes in F1. The garage complex has been extended since F1 came back, but it's still a cramped place to work: difficult for the cars to get in and out of the boxes, which are more raked than usual. It makes the pit-loss time for individual stops very small, but strategists also have to factor in the potential for queuing should the pit lane be busy.

And then there are those banked sections, implemented as a way of creating overtaking opportunities without fundamentally changing the layout of the track. The banking at Turn Three creates a high line and a low line, which makes it very difficult to defend, while the banked section through the final corner allows cars a much longer full throttle section and a better chance of making a move stick into Turn One.

The magic of racing at the Zandvoort

When the Dutch Grand Prix returned in 2021, it had a strong Qualifying bias: starting positions very much dictated finishing positions. The tight Zandvoort circuit made overtaking very difficult, which in turn limited strategic choices.

The race has become more open in the intervening years. Ground-effect F1 cars, with lower speeds on the straights and less impact from wake turbulence, suited the track very well, while moving the start of the primary DRS zone back onto the banking has made Tarzanbocht (Turn One) a good overtaking spot. It makes the Tarzan grandstands the most likely place to see an overtaking move, particularly because the other good overtaking spot, Turn Three, doesn't have any grandstands.

Unless something unusual happens, the other grandstands, at the hairpin and in the Arena section, don't generally provide a view of overtaking activity – but spectators do get to see a lot of laps, with the cars whipping by every 75 seconds. And there are a lot of spectators: the crowd for the Dutch Grand Prix is massive but seems even bigger when shoehorned into this diminutive venue. The atmosphere is fabulous, and it's one of the greenest grands prix on the calendar with most spectators arriving by train or bicycle – even the walk from the train station is good fun.

It isn't a race where you're ever going to get any peace and quiet – and there's a musical accompaniment to everything.

Ultimate Dutch Grand Prix facts

1 | This is the 36th World Championship Dutch Grand Prix. They've all been held at Zandvoort. Races in 1950 and 1951 were non-Championship, with the Dutch Grand Prix gaining World Championship status in 1952. The race was not held in 1954, 1956-7, 1972, and then had a prolonged hiatus after 1985, only returning in 2021.

2 | Aston Martin made its F1 debut in the 1959 Dutch Grand Prix, with the DBR4 driven by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby.

3 | For a race traditionally held mid-season, The Dutch Grand Prix features an unusually high number of firsts. Debuts for, among others, Innes Ireland, Jim Clark, Clay Regazzoni, Peter Gethin, François Cevert and, of the current grid, Liam Lawson, and debut victories for Jo Bonnier, Wolfgang von Trips, Graham Hill and James Hunt. It also features a conclusion: Niki Lauda took his 25th and final F1 victory at this circuit in 1985.

4 | We took our first fastest lap point (and, indeed, our first fastest lap) at this circuit in 2023, courtesy of Fernando.

5 | The 1961 Dutch Grand Prix was the first time the entire F1 field was classified as finishing the race. This was also the first race to feature no pitstops.

6 | The 2023 Dutch Grand Prix holds the record for the most pitstops, with 89. Seven of those are for Lance, in what is a record for a single driver.

7 | The '23 race also holds the record for the most overtakes (in a wet race) with 186, and most overtakes on a single lap, with 63 on lap three.

8 | Johannes Hugenholtz (often anglicized as John Hugenholtz) was appointed director of the new Zandvoort Circuit in 1949. He went on to design the F1 circuits at Zolder, Jarama and Nivelles, plus the Motordrom section of Hockenheim. His most famous work in the Suzuka Circuit: squint hard enough and you can see the influences of Zandvoort’s layout in the design of Honda's home track. He gets a corner here named in his honour: T3 is called Hugenholtzbocht.