> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theseguysknow.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Last Dutch Grand Prix: Verstappen's Farewell and One More Zandvoort Wrist Injury - URL: https://theseguysknow.io/last-dutch-grand-prix-2026-zandvoort/ - Published: 2026-08-19T10:47:05.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-19T10:47:05.000Z - Description: Zandvoort chose to leave Formula 1 while it was still full, Max Verstappen has one final chance to match Jim Clark's win record, and somehow another wrist injury has put Liam Lawson back into a car here. - Author: Kendrick Hale - Tags: Things to Watch, Formula 1 Formula 1 first raced at Zandvoort in 1952, left after 1985, came back in 2021, and finishes there for good on Sunday. The final Dutch Grand Prix arrives with a Red Bull driver ruled out by a wrist injury and Liam Lawson called up at short notice, which is exactly how Zandvoort started Lawson's Formula 1 career three years ago. Max Verstappen won the first three races of the circuit's modern era. He has finished second in the last two, and he hasn't won a Grand Prix this season. So the send-off everyone in orange wants is the one thing this season has spent eleven races arguing against. ## Quick Answer The last Dutch Grand Prix runs on Sunday 23 August at 15:00 local time, 72 laps, round 12 of 23\. It's a sprint weekend, the first at Zandvoort and now the only one, which means a 24-lap sprint on Saturday and a single hour of practice on Friday before anything counts. **Isack Hadjar is out.** De Telegraaf reported he hurt his wrist in the gym during the summer break, and Racing Bulls has confirmed to the *New Zealand Herald* that Lawson moves up to Red Bull for the weekend. Yuki Tsunoda takes the vacated Racing Bulls seat next to Arvid Lindblad. At the time of writing, Red Bull hadn't issued its own formal announcement, described the injury, or said anything about Monza on 6 September. **Verstappen can still win at Zandvoort, but I wouldn’t pick him.** He’s sixth on 109 points, winless after eleven races and 110 behind [Kimi Antonelli](https://theseguysknow.io/kimi-antonelli-could-become-f1s-youngest-world-champion/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com), who has six victories. Second in Hungary before the break showed the Red Bull still has enough pace to fight near the front, and Zandvoort has usually suited Verstappen better than most circuits. Zandvoort wasn't kicked off the F1 calendar. **The Dutch Grand Prix organisers chose to stop after 2026.** ## Zandvoort Didn't Get Dropped. It Quit. Most of the coverage this week reads like Formula 1 dumped the Dutch, which is the opposite of what happened. When the end of the race was announced in December 2024, it came attached to a one-year extension and a straightforward statement that this was the promoter's decision. Rotating with other European rounds was on the table. Carrying on annually was on the table. They said no. Robert van Overdijk, the circuit director, laid out the reasoning to Motorsport.com, and it's money almost all the way down. The Dutch Grand Prix is privately owned and gets no government support, so the organisers carry the risk themselves. To break even they need to sell out all three days, because a packed Saturday and Sunday isn't enough. Sitting on top of that is a local levy of around three euros per attendee, and last year politicians in The Hague floated pushing VAT on tickets from 9% to 21% before backing off. "Why would you keep going until you can't carry on anymore?" van Overdijk said. "We have decided to go out on a high and not when we're over the hill." I respect that more than I'd respect limping on with half-empty grandstands and a bailout request. It's a genuinely dignified way to leave, and hardly anybody in sport does it. It also tells you something uncomfortable about the sport's economics. A race that fills every seat, revived a dormant circuit, and produced the loudest crowd on the calendar has concluded it can't afford itself, while it gets taxed per head for the privilege of existing. Meanwhile races bankrolled by governments who treat the whole thing as a tourism advert sign deals into the 2030s. That's a fucking strange way to sort a world championship, and Zandvoort won't be the last privately funded event to do this arithmetic. ## Verstappen's Home-Race Maths Three wins from three between 2021 and 2023, in front of a hillside of orange smoke. Then Lando Norris beat him there in 2024, Oscar Piastri beat him in 2025, and the new regulations arrived this year and reshuffled the whole grid. Mercedes read them correctly. Red Bull, judging by eleven races, did not. It's the main reason the paddock keeps returning to [whether Verstappen stays at Red Bull at all](https://theseguysknow.io/verstappen-mclaren-piastri-red-bull-rumours/). For the fairytale to happen, several things have to line up at once. Both Mercedes drivers need an awkward Saturday, Zandvoort's narrow and unforgiving layout has to count for more than raw pace, and Verstappen has to produce one of those weekends where he drags a merely decent car somewhere it has no business being. He's done exactly that plenty of times. He hasn't done it once this year, which is the part I can't argue my way around. There are other circuits later in the season where the same question will come back, including [Sepang, where Verstappen's record gives him a better argument than the car probably does](https://theseguysknow.io/f1-malaysia-2026-verstappen-prediction/). Zandvoort is different because there isn't another attempt coming next year. If it lands, it's the best story of the season and nothing else this year comes close. If he finishes second again, a third consecutive runner-up finish at home is a peculiar way for the Orange Army to say goodbye to the place, and they'll sing anyway. ## The Zandvoort Wrist Injury Keeps Happening In 2023, Daniel Ricciardo crashed in second practice here and broke a metacarpal in his left hand. Lawson, a reserve driver at the time, got shoved into the AlphaTauri with no notice, qualified twentieth, finished thirteenth, and held the seat for five races until Ricciardo came back at Austin. That was his Formula 1 debut. Now another wrist injury at the same circuit puts him in a Red Bull. Zandvoort last year was also where Hadjar took his first podium, third behind Piastri and Verstappen, the drive that did more than anything else to earn him the Red Bull seat he can't use this weekend. And the man moving into Lawson's Racing Bulls is Tsunoda, who was promoted to Red Bull in 2025 for the specific reason that Lawson had just been demoted from it after two races. Nobody has ever accused Red Bull's driver programme of sentimentality, and this weekend it has quietly gathered three of its own recent decisions into the same garage complex. ## Lawson Gets One Hour Lawson's bigger problem is the sprint format. Sixty minutes of practice on Friday, then sprint qualifying the same afternoon. That's his entire preparation in a car he has never raced, at a track where the walls are close and the run-off is mostly a suggestion. He isn't walking in cold. Lawson has been the best driver outside the top four teams this season, ninth in the standings on 43 points, in the points at all but three rounds, and the main reason Racing Bulls sit fifth among the constructors. He's also done this precise job before, at this precise circuit. Being quick in a Racing Bulls and being quick next to Verstappen have always been two different jobs, though, and the last time he was handed the second one it lasted two races. A sprint weekend is a rough setting for a second go at it. Anything in the points would be a proper result, and I think he's capable of it. Lawson's Formula 1 career started here with a call he wasn't expecting. Three years later, another injured Red Bull driver has brought him back in much better machinery. ## One Last Chance to Leave With Four Here's the detail that gives Sunday a bit more weight than a farewell lap of honour. Jim Clark won the Dutch Grand Prix four times, in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1967, and no driver has matched it since. Verstappen has three. One more on Sunday and he's level with Clark at Zandvoort. Normally a record like that stays open. There is another race next year, another season after that, another chance for somebody to add one. Once Formula 1 leaves Zandvoort after Sunday, there is no next Dutch Grand Prix on the calendar for Verstappen to chase it. Clark has been sitting on four for fifty-nine years. Verstappen has one race left in this version of Zandvoort's Formula 1 story to get there, in the worst car he's had since he became a regular race winner, at a circuit where thousands of people show up wearing his name. I'm not going to pretend that makes it likely. It doesn't. The Mercedes is quicker, he hasn't won all season, and sport rarely bothers arranging endings this tidy. But it's a better reason to watch than sentiment alone. If he does it, the last Dutch Grand Prix ends with the local driver matching a circuit record that has stood since 1967, just before Formula 1 packs everything up and Zandvoort disappears from the calendar again. That would be an absurd way for this chapter of the circuit's Formula 1 life to end. It would also be a hard one to forget. --- #### Sources - [Formula 1: Dutch Grand Prix 2026](https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2026/netherlands?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: Formula 1 to celebrate final Dutch Grand Prix in 2026](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/formula-1-to-celebrate-final-dutch-grand-prix-in-2026-after-one-year.7EYLHSMGIJyqefI5tMjLrZ?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: 2026 Drivers' Standings](https://www.formula1.com/en/results/2026/drivers?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Motorsport.com: Why Zandvoort is giving up on F1 before Verstappen](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why-zandvoort-is-giving-up-on-f1-before-verstappen/10679252/?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: Facts, stats and trivia ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/need-to-know-the-most-important-facts-stats-and-trivia-ahead-of-the-2025-dutch.6mj7iaeRyxUZLHq2VTQm79?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: Piastri wins as Norris retires and Hadjar takes maiden podium at Zandvoort](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/piastri-wins-as-norris-faces-late-race-retirement-in-dramatic-dutch-grand.5gVVQeQH0zjZk9hl6k6wvv?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: Ricciardo replaced by Lawson after breaking his hand at Zandvoort](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/breaking-ricciardo-to-be-replaced-by-lawson-for-remainder-of-dutch-gp.5JCEAa5XnnUsjZ1SE7lXFX?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Formula 1: 48 hours in the life of super-sub Liam Lawson at Zandvoort](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/behind-the-scenes-48-hours-in-the-life-of-alphatauri-super-sub-liam-lawson.1bQ8KVw8h4SKzrKMABINAz?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [Crash.net: Isack Hadjar could miss Dutch GP with Liam Lawson in line for Red Bull return](https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1102532/1/isack-hadjar-could-miss-dutch-gp-liam-lawson-line-shock-red-bull-f1-return?ref=theseguysknow.io) - [AutoTrader New Zealand: Lawson back at Red Bull for Dutch Grand Prix](https://autotrader.co.nz/news/lawson-back-at-red-bull-for-dutch-grand-prix?ref=theseguysknow.io)