Lando Norris believes his McLaren car is now leading the Formula 1 pack after the British driver took a dominant victory at the Dutch Grand Prix. His view was backed up by world champion Max Verstappen, who was comprehensively beaten and said the lack of performance from his Red Bull was an “alarming” development.

Norris won at Zandvoort despite being beaten at the finish by Verstappen. The 24-year-old bided his time before exploiting the McLaren’s fearsome speed to sweep past the world champion and then extend his lead with ease until he crossed the flag almost 23 seconds clear of the Dutchman.

Since a series of upgrades were applied at the Miami GP, McLaren have repeatedly battled at the front with Verstappen and Red Bull, with Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri each taking one win to date. In the Netherlands, however, it was in a class of its own, with Norris confirming that he believed their car was now the fastest on the grid and that they should have taken more wins with it.

When asked if he thought it was the fastest package now, the British driver said “100%, yes”, adding: “Today, this whole weekend, I think we’ve had the best car. We have more information than people from outside, so we can comment in a much more factual way than people who are just watching on TV and making their choices and guesses.

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

Norris now trails Verstappen by 70 points in the world championship standings and the team brought further upgrades to this round in Zandvoort that appear to have been just as effective as the first instalment in Florida. His sentiments about the McLaren’s advantage were acknowledged by Verstappen, who echoed the words of Red Bull motorsport director Helmut Marko in describing the decline in balance and performance of their car as alarming.

“We don’t have the fastest car. We have some issues that we need to solve and we are working on that,” he said. “This weekend was just a bad weekend in general. So we have to understand that. But the last few races have not been really great. So that was already a bit alarming in a way.”

It was the third time this season that Norris has lost places from pole position, having lost the lead from the start. He attributed this to a wheelspin issue that the team had to address, but also said his reaction was crucial to overtaking Verstappen and taking the win.

“After I turned the first corner and got off the line, I was actually just surprisingly calm, maybe because I’m used to driving backwards at the start,” he said. “I’m very well prepared for those kind of scenarios. And I was very calm and thought, ‘OK, what can I do now?’ And that was just looking ahead, saving tires, seeing what my pace was.”

He indeed had a formidable pace and made eager use of it to regain the lead on lap 18 and secure his second Formula 1 victory.