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Max Verstappen's winning streak at home is over, Red Bull's long hold on the Formula 1 constructors' championship lead now looks very vulnerable and only that ample cushion from earlier in the season is keeping Verstappen as favourite in the drivers' title race.
Some of the winners and losers from Zandvoort might be easy to guess. Here's our pick of them throughout the field.
Loser: Red Bull
Second place is probably the best result Red Bull could have hoped for today, given McLaren was well ahead in qualifying.
But the situation now is stark: just 30 points separate chaser McLaren and leader Red Bull in the constructors' standings.
A big reason that deficit has shrunk is down to McLaren’s continued development, but Sergio Perez’s struggles are continuing to cost Red Bull. It has now been outscored by McLaren for five consecutive races.
Although Zandvoort was Perez’s best finish since Miami in May, he hasn’t finished in the top five since then - and today was only sixth.
Red Bull is doing everything it can to give Perez more confidence, including extra driver coaching ahead of this race, but one wonders how long it can continue in this position.
Verstappen didn’t enjoy his time in the car today either. Despite finishing second he complained of balance issues with the RB20 throughout the race.
If McLaren continues to outscore Red Bull at this rate, it will take the constructors’ championship lead by Singapore in just three races' time. - Samarth Kanal
Winner: Lando Norris
McLaren has won races this season already, but this felt like a true breakthrough where Norris was able to surpass even the dominance Red Bull had at the start of the year with the biggest victory margin of the season.
Norris lost the lead with another poor start - something he and the team will need to fix when Red Bull strikes back in future races - but ultimately here it didn’t matter.
Such was Norris’s pace that he breezed past Verstappen when other encounters in previous races have felt like wars to the death lasting lap after lap.
One dive down Turn 1 with DRS and Norris was gone, not to be seen by his rival again.
The start issue needs sorting, but after it, Norris bounced back in incredible fashion and had the measure of his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri - who's been snapping at his heels and sometimes equalling or bettering him this year - with what looked like relative ease.
The constructors' championship lead now looks rapidly achievable for McLaren - and Verstappen's drivers' championship lead looks increasingly within reach for Norris too. - Jack Benyon
Loser: Oscar Piastri
Piastri simply wasn't on McLaren team-mate Norris's level all weekend.
He underdelivered on Saturday by not finding a big enough improvement on his second run in Q3, allowing Max Verstappen to nick a place on the front row in a slower Red Bull.
And then on Sunday Piastri spent far too long stuck behind other cars, meaning McLaren only got a one-four when it should have been a one-two.
It disrupts the momentum from a very strong end to the first half of Piastri's 2024 season and leaves him with plenty of head-scratching to do before Monza. - Josh Suttill
Winner: Pierre Gasly
No repeat of his 2023 Zandvoort podium heroics but a perhaps equally hard-earned ninth-place finish for Pierre Gasly.
Though he emerged as the winner of F1's 'Class B' battle behind the top four teams this weekend, it was far from straightforward.
He made a stellar start to pass Fernando Alonso on the first lap to run seventh and then cut down a 10s gap to Nico Hulkenberg that a Kevin Magnussen blockade and a slow Alpine pitstop helped to build.
Gasly was well clear of his struggling team-mate Esteban Ocon all weekend and gave his new team boss Oliver Oakes a solid debut. - JS
Loser: Mercedes
Having won three of the last four races before the break, Mercedes came crashing back to earth on Sunday at Zandvoort.
Things started strongly with George Russell moving up to third at the start but he went backwards from there, dropping behind both Leclerc and Piastri.
Then came a rather puzzling second stop for Russell which sacrificed track position to both Sainz and Sergio Perez.
Russell said he felt like he was driving on ice as he ended up seventh, just one place ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton - who started nine places behind him.
Both drivers were mystified as to why the Mercedes was so ineffective on Sunday with the hope being this is very firmly an outlier off-weekend. - JS
Winner: Charles Leclerc
On any other day Charles Leclerc probably walks away with driver of the day for his Zandvoort performance. Shame about that pesky McLaren out in front then, eh?
But never mind that. Leclerc kept one car honest that the Ferrari isn't in the same league as right now (Verstappen's Red Bull) and beat another he had no right beating (Piastri's McLaren).
If anything, this was more impressive than his drive to third in the Belgian GP four weeks ago considering it mixed offensive (the undercut to get ahead of Russell and Piastri) with defensive (resisting Piastri in the closing laps).
The quality of the drive was underlined by his admission in the post-race press conference that Ferrari right now is chasing "damage limitation" results until its next upgrade, planned for the Italian GP next weekend.
If this is what he's capable of without that, and the upgrade provides a decent step, Leclerc will absolutely be a contender for a third-straight 2024 podium at Ferrari's home race - Jack Cozens
Loser: Alex Albon
A weekend of two halves for Williams and Alex Albon.
Stop it after qualifying ends and it's a triumphant debut for the upgraded Williams.
But fast forward just over 24 hours later and Albon loses that eighth on the grid due to an illegal floor and then his race comeback is badly stilted.
He bore the biggest brunt of the Magnussen blockade, calling it "very dangerous". That cooked his tyres and any small sniff of a points finish was completely extinguished. He came home 14th.
The positive is that performance-wise Williams's new upgrade - the first proper update of its season - worked well and it can expect to fight for points more regularly.
But it's just missed a big chance to immediately capitalise and instead of starting to close down the gap to Alpine ahead, it has lost further ground. - JS
Winner: Ferrari
Is this where Ferrari wants to be right now? Absolutely not.
Was third and fifth the maximum available at Zandvoort? Absolutely.
There's lots of attention, understandably, on McLaren's pursuit of Red Bull now it's a regular contender for victory. But Ferrari is only 34 points further back in the constructors' championship - that, too, after a patchy run where its upgrade strategy has been in the spotlight.
That means optimism that its Monza upgrade will lift it out of "damage limitation" mode has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but results like this are going a long way to keeping it in outside contention while it bids to get back up amongst Red Bull and McLaren. - JC
Loser: Aston Martin
If seventh and eighth on the grid looked like a return to decent F1 form for Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso's solitary point on Sunday was a harsh reminder that Aston is firmly in the midfield pack now.
More than that, it was a reminder of how far from the sharp end this team has fallen at a track where Alonso scored his third runner-up finish of the 2023 season 12 months ago.
If this is the reality for Aston Martin for the remainder of the season, the one consolation is there are unlikely to be enough points on offer for the teams it's now at the same performance level as to make up any meaningful ground and threaten its fifth place in the constructors' championship. - JC
