Max Verstappen crashed out of his home race at Zandvoort in dramatic scenes on the opening lap of the Dutch Grand Prix.
The four-time world champion, a three-time winner at his home event, lost control of his Red Bull car on the final banked turn on the first lap of the race.
Verstappen spun and slammed into the concrete wall, launching his smashed car back onto the circuit. Fortunately, he wasn’t hit by a car behind him.
Verstappen, who escaped from his cockpit unharmed, said over team radio: “Yeah that’s it, I’m out. Ah f***, sorry guys.” The race was stopped by the race director as a result of the incident and debris.
However, it was a sad end to Verstappen’s racing in Formula 1 in Zandvoort, with the venue hosting F1 for the final time this weekend.
Amazingly, Gabriel Bortoleto simultaneously did a 360-spin in his Audi car behind Verstappen’s incident but controlled his car and continued on.
“It was still quite wet in that corner,” Verstappen said afterwards. “As soon as I went there, I could see a dry line coming, I thought I could accelerate but it went a lot, it caught me out, tried to correct it, hit the wall.
“It could’ve been a lot worse because there were a lot of cars behind me, but that all went well. “
Lando Norris won an action-packed race from pole, with Kimi Antonelli and George Russell completing the podium.