Lando Norris believes his McLaren now leads the Formula 1 field after the British driver took a dominant win at the Dutch Grand Prix. His view was backed by world champion Max Verstappen, who finished a distant second and described his Red Bull’s lack of performance as an “alarming” development.

Norris won at Zandvoort despite being beaten by Verstappen at the start. The 24-year-old waited for the right moment before taking advantage of the McLaren’s fearsome pace to pass the world champion and then effortlessly extended his lead until he crossed the line almost 23 seconds ahead of the Dutchman.

Since a series of upgrades were made at the Miami GP, McLaren have been battling with Verstappen and Red Bull at the front, with Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri each taking a win so far. In the Netherlands, however, they were in a class of their own and Norris confirmed that he believed their car was now the fastest on the grid and that they should have taken more wins with it.

Asked if he thought it was the fastest package now, the British driver said “100% yes”, adding: “Today, all weekend, I think we had the best car. We have more information than the people on the outside, so we can make much more factual comments than people who just watch on TV and give their tips and guesses.”

“On average, we had the best car. We probably should have won two or three more races as a team, but we didn’t manage that because we didn’t work well enough. I didn’t work well enough.”

Norris is now 70 points behind Verstappen in the World Championship and the team brought further improvements to this race in Zandvoort, which appear to have been just as effective as the first tranche in Florida. Verstappen’s feelings about the McLaren’s advantage were acknowledged by him, echoing the words of Red Bull’s motorsport director Helmut Marko when he described his car’s loss of balance and performance as alarming.

“We don’t have the fastest car. We have some issues that we need to solve and we’re working on them,” he said. “This weekend was just a bad weekend overall. We have to understand that. But the last few races haven’t really been fantastic. That was a bit worrying in some ways.”

Losing the lead early on was the third time this season that Norris has lost places from pole position. He put this down to a wheel spin issue that the team had to fix, but he also pointed out that his reaction was crucial in overtaking Verstappen and taking the win.

“After I finished in the first corner and came off the start line, I was actually surprisingly calm, maybe because I’m used to going backwards at the start,” he said. “I’m very well prepared for these kinds of scenarios. And I was very calm and thought, ‘OK, so what can I do now?’ And that was just to look ahead, save tires and see how fast I was.”

He had a really impressive pace and used it confidently to regain the lead on lap 18 and secure his second F1 victory.