Max Verstappen looking forward to Dutch Grand Prix after seeing revamped Zandvoort track

Max Verstappen is looking forward to his first home Grand Prix in the Netherlands with the return of Zandvoort to the F1 calendar after 1985. Max said that he is taking pleasure in the idea of the "old school" challenge of the track, particularly on low fuel runs in qualifying. After finishing first and taking half points from pole position at the washed-out Belgian Grand Prix, Verstappen sits second, three points behind Lewis Hamilton in the driver championship leaderboard and Max is looking forward to race in front of thousands of his fans.

“I have to say, they’ve done an incredible job setting this all up and first of all on hosting the Grand Prix, but also now how you look at the whole complex as a whole, it looks very cool and I hope we can have a good fun weekend, of course with a good result; that’s always what you try to aim for, but I think we can enjoy ourselves on a Saturday once the fuel comes out and we’ll see how fast we can go around this track,” he was quoted as saying by formula1.com.

The old school challenge excites Verstappen

The Zandvoort circuit underwent some major changes in 2019, with the Hugenholtz and Arie Luyendijk corners now banked and the other corners have also been reprofiled to provide a high-speed challenge for the drivers which excites Verstappen. "Everyone is very interested in the banked corners and I have to say, when you do the track walk it looks very special. You don’t really see that a lot on other kinds of tracks. It definitely adds something to it. Of course, the last corner… will be easy flat(-out) but Turn 3 gives you more opportunities in terms of what lines you can take," said Verstappen.

How the Belgian Grand Prix played out

In what was the shortest ever Grand Prix, Red Bull's Verstappen came out on top of a heavily shortened Belgian Grand Prix owing to some bad weather. Max finished ahead of second-place Williams qualifier George Russell and third-place Mercedes driver Hamilton. The race took place behind a safety car after the rain played spoilsport cause F1 Race Director Michael Masi to delay the race.

The race was scheduled to start at 15:00 PM local time and after about a 25-minute delay, the rain showed no promise of slowing down the formation laps behind the Safety Car followed however Masi had the red flag waved and all the cars were back in the pit lanes. After many more delays, the race resumed finally at 18:17 local time and after only a handful of laps behind the Safety Car followed by another red flag, Verstappen pulled back into the pits, and at 18:45 local time, it was announced that the race will not resume. So most of the field finished where they had qualified, with only half points being awarded as the rules state that at least 75% of the race must be completed for full points to be given.

(Image Credits: AP)