Max Verstappen’s last home race at Zandvoort was over almost before it began. On the opening lap of Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver clipped a white line on the inside of the banked final corner, lost the rear of the RB22, and pitched into the outside wall head-on before sliding across the track and coming to rest on the inside.

He was uninjured. The race was suspended while marshals cleared the debris, and Lando Norris eventually won ahead of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.

A damp patch on the Luyendyk banking

Rain had fallen shortly before lights out, and the banked Luyendyk corner, the flat-out final turn onto the main straight, was still greasy in places as the field completed the opening lap. Verstappen was running seventh at the time.

His explanation was straightforward.

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“It was of course still quite wet in that corner. As soon as I was going through the corner, I could see a little bit of a dry line coming, and I thought from that point on I could accelerate again, but it suddenly then accelerated a lot,” Verstappen told Sky Sports.

“It caught me out, simple as that. I tried to correct it but couldn’t.”

Teammate Liam Lawson, following moments behind, saw the impact on his own approach.

“Is he okay, as that was huge. Is he okay?” Lawson asked over the radio.

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Verstappen credits the SAFER barrier

Verstappen confirmed over the radio he was fine and apologised to his team for ending his race so early. Speaking afterwards, he pointed to what might have followed the initial hit as the reason it stayed a bad afternoon rather than a serious one.

“It could have been a lot worse because there were a lot of cars behind me as well,” he said.

He also credited the barrier that took the frontal impact.

“Good. I think I still hit the SAFER barrier maybe, potentially. But I think also a more frontal impact [with the barrier] is actually a bit better than a sideways one, so from that sense all okay,” Verstappen told Formula1.com.

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The RB22 was destroyed. The Alpine of Pierre Gasly had to take avoiding action moments after the initial impact, and Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto spun at the same corner without hitting anything.

Zandvoort exits the F1 calendar

The crash carried an added sting because the 2026 race was staged as Zandvoort’s last, with no contract in place to extend the deal beyond this year. Verstappen won three of the six editions since the Dutch Grand Prix returned to the calendar in 2021, and Sunday was framed all weekend as a farewell to the home crowd.

He summed it up briefly.

“This weekend, of course, [was] disappointing. I think disappointing pace, and a disappointing end to the weekend. I think you can sum it up like that,” Verstappen said.

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Red Bull’s best result on the day was Lawson in seventh, the position Verstappen was holding when the RB22 hit the wall.

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