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Lando Norris and McLaren took an ominous victory in Formula 1's Dutch Grand Prix, catching and passing Red Bull's Max Verstappen with ease after losing the lead to him on the first lap.
Poor first laps have been a consistent bugbear of Norris's season, so much so that he said he hadn't been performing at world-champion level during the first half of the campaign.
On Thursday at the Dutch GP, he singled out better race starts and first laps as key to kickstarting his drivers' title charge.
But that didn't go to plan at the start of the race as he lost the pole position he'd earned by dominating in qualifying just seconds after the lights went out.
His sluggish getaway allowed Verstappen to pass Norris well before Turn 1, with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri also dropping from third to fourth with a similarly poor start.
But it ultimately didn't matter as by lap 16 of 72 Norris was on the back of Verstappen's RB20. Two laps later he passed Verstappen into Turn 1 with the Red Bull driver offering little resistance.
Norris stretched his advantage thereafter, so much so that even when Red Bull pitted Verstappen one lap earlier than Norris at a track where the undercut is very strong, Norris still comfortably came out back in the lead.
Thereafter Norris remained unchallenged and ultimately ended up 22.8 seconds ahead of Verstappen - who'd won all three previous editions of the Dutch GP since it returned to the calendar - by the chequered flag.
His winning margin was also the biggest of the season, eclipsing Verstappen's 22.457s victory over team-mate Sergio Perez in the season-opening Bahrain GP.
That final lap provided an extra sweetener for Norris too as he took the fastest lap bonus point.
Norris's second-ever F1 grand prix win and that bonus point cuts Verstappen's championship lead from 78 points to 70 with nine race weekends of 2024 to go.
Leclerc's unlikely podium
Ferrari had an underwhelming Saturday with Charles Leclerc qualifying nine tenths off pole in sixth and Carlos Sainz not even making it into Q3.
But things went much better on Sunday, particularly for Leclerc - who passed Sergio Perez at the start and then undercut his way past both George Russell and Oscar Piastri.
Piastri had a tyre offset advantage in the second stint and while he quickly caught Leclerc, he couldn't properly threaten the Ferrari driver and had to settle for fourth.
Leclerc claimed a second consecutive third-place finish ahead of Piastri and team-mate Sainz, who recovered well from 10th to fifth.
Perez ended up sixth, beating George Russell - who made a second pitstop for soft tyres but wound up five seconds short of Perez.
Lewis Hamilton took eighth place from 13th on the grid. He was just 4.9s behind Russell but had been as little as 1.4s behind his team-mate until the final few laps.
Magnussen almost earns Hulkenberg points
There was another case of Haas trying to use Kevin Magnussen to earn Nico Hulkenberg a points finish on Sunday at Zandvoort. But unlike in Jeddah and Miami, this one didn't quite go to plan.
Hulkenberg made an early pitstop from 12th on the grid while Magnussen was left out on track for a long time to hold up the likes of Alex Albon, another early stopper, and Alpine's Pierre Gasly, who had run seventh early on.
Albon called Magnussen's plan "really dangerous" but he was powerless to stop Hulkenberg from racing away in ninth and Albon instead dropped back with burned-out tyres.
Gasly had a 10s gap to cut down to Hulkenberg and with 12 laps to go he passed Hulkenberg to earn ninth place - a strong debut for new team boss Oliver Oakes.
Hulkenberg then came under attack from the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, who at one stage looked likely to miss out on points despite starting seventh alongside team-mate Lance Stroll on the fourth row.
But Alonso followed Gasly through a couple of laps later to claim 10th place.
Stroll incurred a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane and instead of challenging Hulkenberg, he lost 12th to Daniel Ricciardo's RB once his penalty was applied.
There were no retirements in the Dutch GP for the first time since it returned to the F1 calendar in 2021.
