Lando Norris took a commanding victory at the Dutch Grand Prix over the home favourite and title rival Max Verstappen.

Does this mark a momentum shift this season as McLaren appears to have finally loosened Redbull’s stranglehold at the sharp end of the F1 grid. A grip that they’ve maintained since in the introduction of the current ground-effect rules.

Norris’ victory margin of 22.8 seconds is largest of the season so far, after being jumped at the start by Verstappen, he cruised by with the aid of DRS on lap 18 and never looked back, pulling out a massive gap over his rival and taking the fastest lap of the race on the final go around on 44 lap-old hard tires.

After repassing Verstappen the win never looked in doubt for Norris, the Redbull driver was unable to respond to the crushing pace of the McLaren that has been strong all season but is now really coming into its own. 

Redbull haven’t been firing on all cylinders for last the last couple of races now, with the team unable to find the same balance window the car was operating in at the start of the season. One that gave them what has now become a critical head start for Verstappen in the Drivers Championship.

In a bid to find some of their early season form again Redbull opted to run the Bahrain spec floor from the season opener on Verstappen’s car this weekend, but as the disappointing result confirmed there seems to be a deeper issue preventing the current world champions from unlocking some more performance.

It must also be noted McLaren brought an array of upgrades to the Dutch GP including modifications to the front and rear suspension, changes to the floor edge and a higher downforce package for the rear and beam wings.

So just how much is the result rooted in a Redbull regression/ stagnation or a McLaren surge? Well it’s hard to tell.

One thing that is certain is that neither championship is done deal. McLaren trail Redbull in the constructors standings by only thirty points, and although Lando Norris’ deficit of seventy points to Max Verstappen is undeniably large, if the current form of McLaren continues and Redbull fall further into the chasing pack of Mercedes and Ferrari, it will be a fight to the end in which Verstappen can not afford to take his foot off the gas.

Header Image by Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons