THE BIG PICTURE: Reliability, especially power unit reliability late in a rules cycle, is so rare nowadays, that when it happens, it has a profound effect. Even rarer can it be expected to happen again to even things out. Which makes a 34 point lead amongst drivers on the same team massive.

EVENT: When the Australian promoter after witnessing this event in person says, "There is no way we can duplicate that in Australia. Even with unlimited alcohol supplies," that says it all.

TRACK: Just one more year of the fun banked turns and those great in-car gyro cameras.

QUALIFYING: Once again Norris controls FP1, FP2, FP3 but fails to perform when it counts on Saturday afternoon as Piastri grabs pole, Verstappen keeps them semi-honest, Hadjar pulls out a spectacular lap, Antonelli falters again as does Tsunoda, Albon is hopping mad, and Stroll throws a Q3 capable car into the wall at the onset.

RACE: Luckily for us, as Albon said, there was chaos. Otherwise, we would have been in for a processional Zandvoort affair.

START: Piastri aggressively defends his position, Verstappen takes advantage of his softs to go around the outside of Norris, almost doesn't keep it, and then needs a miraculous save to keep it on the road and claim second. All while Leclerc gets by Russell and Albon jumps five positions.

PIASTRI: Despite what happened to his teammate, this race was won on Saturday. Which has been the story of Oscar's championship bid.

NORRIS: This could be Lando's "Malaysian" moment.

VERSTAPPEN: At this point, even a patented Max miracle drive might not make a difference anymore for the remainder of the season.

TSUNODA: Not counting the zero-pointers, Yuki is dead last in the standings. While driving a Red Bull.

HADJAR: The good news is Isack's excellent qualifying and becoming the youngest French podium finisher puts him in line for a Red Bull promotion. The bad news is Isack's excellent qualifying and becoming the youngest French podium finisher puts him in line for a Red Bull promotion.

ALBON: His qualifying frustration disappeared after a very satisfying race.

SAINZ: Carlos was the complete opposite.

WILLIAMS: Looking forward to seeing what they can do at Monza. Their best performing track for years now.

BEARMAN: From a pit lane start to a career best sixth place.

HAAS: This time, they cashed in on the points they should have gotten.

ASTON MARTIN: What a difficult weekend to grade. High hopes early on dashed by two Stroll crashes. The race turning into a disaster. Then, the safety car periods fell just right, and suddenly both cars are in the points, as expected. Weirder, Lance finished higher than Alonso, after the terrible Friday and Saturday.

LECLERC: What an amazing, old school, elbows out, aggressive pass on Russell. We don't give a crap whether it was legal or not.

HAMILTON: Well, Lewis was improving...

FERRARI: One car into the Turn 3 wall. The other car into the Turn 3 wall. Let's just pack up and go to Monza.

PEREZ: The failure of the second Red Bull car this year exonerated Sergio, and provided him with a final opportunity in 2026.

BOTTAS: The fact that Valtteri brushed off overtures from a long time established factory team to sign with a brand new most likely to be way off the pace team is a pretty damning statement about Alpine. And Briatore.

CADILLAC: It may be a boring decision, but no team in modern times has had such a short runway to get a program off the ground. The last thing they needed was to add an unknown variable to the driver ranks.

F1 ACADEMY: Local birthday girl, Nina Gademan, was "gifted" pole position in the reverse grid first race and drove off to her first victory. Another local Dutch driver, Maya Weug, earned the real pole position in Race 2 and rode off into the sunset with a dominating win. Weug moved into second place, closing the gap to Doriane Pin to 20 points.

WORD OF THE WEEKEND: Poof.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: 9 -- Oscar Piastri has now won nine times, equaling his manager's, Mark Webber, career total.

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: Pirelli took part in their 500th F1 race. They have been involved on and off since the beginning in 1950. In that inaugural world championship season, every entrant ran either Pirelli or Dunlop tires, except one (the Equipe Gordini team, which was a division of Renault) who ran Englebert tires from Belgium. One independent entrant driven by Peter Whitehead running a customer Ferrari started out with Pirelli, switched to Dunlop, and then switched back to Pirelli. Pirelli won ever single F1 race, got every pole, and nabbed every fastest lap in 1950. It helped that all that success was accomplished solely by the Alfa Romeo team.

TWEET OF THE WEEKEND: After Lance Stroll's second crash on Saturday, the always dependable @BanterSteiner posted this:

If anyone deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, it's Lawrence Stroll. Honestly, I would've fucking killed him.

#DutchGP #F1

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: In the cooldown room, when Max Verstappen saw his lurid moment at the start, he matter of factly said, "That's a lot of sand there." As if the idea of losing the car was never a thought.

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: Carlos Sainz after being told he was the one getting the penalty for his clash with Liam Lawson, "Who? Who gets a penalty? ME? You are joking. You are joking. It is the most ridiculous decision of my life."

SCHEDULE: Off to the cradle of speed. It will be a lot more difficult for Ferrari to repeat last year's stunning win. But the tifosi will certainly will it on.

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