Max Verstappen turned the Dutch Grand Prix into something close to a home coronation. When Zandvoort came back onto the calendar in 2021 after 36 years away, the orange crowd already had its champion, and Verstappen gave them exactly the weekend they had queued for.
Six races, three wins, and a podium in every one of the first five. That was the shape of his Zandvoort record until 2026, when the run finally broke. Here is the full account, year by year.
Three wins in a row, and how the streak ended
Verstappen won the first three modern Dutch Grands Prix, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, each time from pole. The 2023 win was the pick of them. The rain arrived before the cars had even settled, the race was stopped near the end, and Verstappen came through it untouched to equal a record of nine straight wins in a single season.
The run stopped in 2024. Lando Norris was simply quicker that weekend and led home a comfortable win, with Verstappen second. In 2025 it was Oscar Piastri's turn, and again Verstappen took second. Three golds, then two silvers. For five years he was never off the box.
Qualifying is where the Zandvoort story really belongs to him. Verstappen started the first three races from pole and, for five straight years, never lined up worse than third here. On a circuit this narrow, where overtaking borders on impossible, that front-row habit is most of the reason the wins came so easily in those early years.
2026: the streak ends
The sixth visit was the first bad one. Verstappen qualified seventh, his worst Zandvoort grid slot by four places, and never had the pace to climb out of it. He retired before the flag and was classified 22nd and last.
It ended two runs at once: the podium in every Dutch Grand Prix, and the habit of starting on the first two rows. Zandvoort had been the one race on the calendar where Verstappen always delivered something. In 2026 it gave him nothing at all.
Max Verstappen's Dutch GP record year by year
The table lays it out plainly. Note how the points barely move even as the results slip from first to second: at Zandvoort, Verstappen has always left with a heavy haul.
| Year | Team | Grid | Finish | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Red Bull | 1st | 1st | 25 |
| 2022 | Red Bull | 1st | 1st | 26 |
| 2023 | Red Bull | 1st | 1st | 25 |
| 2024 | Red Bull | 2nd | 2nd | 18 |
| 2025 | Red Bull | 3rd | 2nd | 18 |
| 2026 | Red Bull | 7th | DNF (retired) | 0 |
The one number that stands out
A podium in the first five runnings is still the stat to hang onto, and it took until the sixth for a blank weekend to arrive. Whether he was winning at a canter or chasing a faster McLaren, Verstappen spent half a decade finishing in the top three in front of his own grandstand. That he needed a retirement to break the run, rather than simply being beaten, says most of what there is to say.
The Dutch Grand Prix still reads like a home fixture that went largely to plan. Three wins from the first three visits, second best on the two occasions a rival had more, and then one afternoon in 2026 that took it all away at once. For a driver racing under a sea of orange smoke, five podiums from six is about as good as a home record gets.
