2024 F1 Dutch Grand Prix driver ratings

Lando Norris crushed all that dared to stand in his way at the Dutch Grand Prix, cantering to victory after annihilating the opposition in qualifying the previous afternoon.

F1 is back from the summer break and whilst McLaren has coyly denied having the strongest car for some weeks now, it cannot continue that tightly-PR'd line any longer.

There is a new prevailing wind in F1 and it blows papaya, but how did the rest of the field fare on a weekend with plenty of gusts of its own?

Check out the full RacingNews365 driver ratings below and let us know what you think in the comments.

Top five

Lando Norris - 9.5

Statement performance. Superb in qualifying to put himself on pole by over three-tenths of a second across a lap which is only 70 seconds - in Max Verstappen's back yard.

Utterly dominant in the race itself. Reeled in the Red Bull driver and swanned past at the quarter-distance mark. Victory never looked in doubt from that point forward, taking the largest winning margin all year.

He loses half a point for conceding the lead off the line, but if that streak could not end, at least Norris has now won from pole.

Charles Leclerc - 8.5

The Ferrari driver takes home far more from the weekend than I think any of us could have predicted beforehand. Perhaps could have performed stronger in qualifying, but that is rather clutching at straws.

A well-executed strategy from his team - for once - allowed him to leap-frog George Russell in the race with the undercut and he put on an excellent defensive display to keep Oscar Piastri at bay thereafter.

I cannot see how the Monegasque driver could have come away from the weekend with more.

Pierre Gasly - 8

It is not every day that a driver from the tail-end of the championship gets his flowers in a top five rating, but it is hard to fault the Frenchman after picking up another two points at Zandvoort.

The 28-year-old reached Q3 and subsequently profited from Alexander Albon's disqualification to start ninth, which he held onto in the race.

Even more impressive, is he remained whilst others slipped. Both the Aston Martins started ahead of him but fell away as quicker cars came through. Really strong showing.

Carlos Sainz - 8

The Spaniard's torrid weekend ended on a relative high after next to no representative running throughout the three practice hours.

Yes, a Q2 elimination was not good, but his extenuating circumstances explain that. With little opportunity to nail set-up and understand long-run performance for the grand prix, Sainz's pace was impressive.

He was calm and composed in scything through the field, dispatching of those ahead, one by one. The fact he finished ahead of Sergio Perez in Ferrari that has underwhelmed of late says it all.

Max Verstappen - 7.5

Curious. Although not. We live in a world where an 'off' weekend for the Dutchman is P2 in qualifying and P2 in the race. Brilliant.

He will need to rely on that metronomic level of performance over the final nine rounds to stave off Norris, but if he can keep doing what he did at Zandvoort, he will be just fine.

I, for one, prescribe to the belief that Norris' margin of victory - dominant as it was - was somewhat artificially inflated. That is to say that Verstappen eased off when it became evident a win was not on the cards.

Points-wise, the 26-year-old could have taken much more from the weekend, but the gap to the McLaren in qualifying is a legitimate cause for concern. Red Bull should get someone to look at that.

Bottom five

Valtteri Bottas - 3.5

Maybe I have put a rod through my own back with this one, because there is very little to say about a driver who qualified P18 (started P16) and finished P19.

The Stake driver was the beneficiary of Albon's DSQ and Kevin Magnussen's pit lane start, but he was seemingly powerless to prevent himself slipping back in the race, where he finished two laps down.

There is also no guarantee he would have out-qualified Logan Sargeant. Either way, the two-stopper did not work here and he could not prevent any of those three waltzing past en route to the chequered flag.

Zhou Guanyu - 3.5

See above, but a little bit worse.

Yuki Tsunoda - 3

What happened here? Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had a quiet and forgettable afternoon, starting P13 and finishing P12 so there was evidently staying power in the RB.

But by falling from P11 at the start to P17 by the end of the race, Yuki Tsunoda is the biggest loser of the Dutch Grand Prix.

The aforementioned two-stopper only really worked for Hamilton, and maybe Albon, so RB may have to take some responsibility here, but we have almost become accustomed to a plucky overall performance from the Japanese driver to at least nab a point or two.

Lance Stroll - 2.5

Out-qualified by a Williams, fortune to inherit its grid slot when it was disqualified, but ultimately unable to hold onto eighth - or any points at all - and finished P13. Not great.

Sure, Fernando Alonso also lost positions from seventh on the grid, but he managed to score a point. Stroll did not.

The Aston Martin is still good enough to fight for the lower reaches of the points week in, week out, and Stroll could not do that at Zandvoort. It was a thoroughly underwhelming display. Next.

Logan Sargeant - 1

Wish I had not written 'next' above now, because well...

The end is nigh for Sargeant. The writing is on the wall. The American driver has reached the end of the road with Williams. *Insert your own cliched journo-speak saying for the 23-year-old's time in F1 being up here*

Unfortunately, for Sargeant, his latest costly mistake came on a weekend where Williams had introduced substantial upgrades - and it was a complete, unmitigated, unforced driver error, too.

The extent of the damage prevented him from qualifying and you immediately got the sense that it was that very moment that he reached the end of James Vowles' tether.

The one saving grace for Sargeant, is that he moved through the field relatively well on Sunday, finishing two positions - and around 20 seconds - behind Albon, but it is looking increasingly likely that his practice shunt will be his parting memory of F1.