The Destination

Amsterdam (ZandVoort)

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With over four kilometres of corners and a small straight on the start/finish, the circuit of Zandvoort will be quite a challenge for drivers and mechanics. Cars that have enough downforce will feel right at home on the circuit in the dunes. The only question is whether drivers will be as well: it's an unknown track for virtually everyone!

In 1985, the last edition of the Dutch Grand Prix was held at Zandvoort, with racing legend Niki Lauda being crowned the last winner on Dutch soil. In that season, Alain Prost came second and Ayrton Senna completed the podium: three racing legends pushing each other to the limit on the technical circuit.

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Zandvoort is famously a very narrow, technical track, as every F1 driver who earned their stripes in Formula 3 would tell you. The circuit has taken considerable measures to widen the track to create more opportunities for wheel-to-wheel racing, but should still be difficult to overtake on because of the nature of the track. For reference, F3 drivers already complained about the track’s lack of overtaking opportunity, and those cars are not nearly as wide as modern-day F1 cars!

Besides its new, banked final corner on the run to the home straight, Zandvoort is a very twisty track where downforce-heavy set-ups will be the way to go. Typically, Red Bull Racing perform well at bendy tracks like Zandvoort, so the Dutch crowd should be excited to see their country’s hero, Max Verstappen, compete for the win in the first Dutch Grand Prix in over three decades.

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