NETHERLANDS — As the Formula 1 (F1) cars took to the winding Zandvoort track with tricky banked corners and unpredictable wind gusts, many drivers were caught out and crashed during the practice sessions. This is one of several courses on the F1 calendar where teams consider a safety car period a near certainty over the course of a race, and the race on Aug. 31 delivered on the promise.

Racing is inherently unpredictable and between accidents and mechanical reliability, a number of drivers fail to finish a race. From 1979-97, at least 50% of the cars that started a race retired from that race in all but two of those seasons. After 1997, more than 50% of the cars finish the race with recent years having a completion percentage as high as 87%.

Rule changes and the advanced technology that goes into F1 cars has helped lessen the number of mechanical issues, and stricter rule enforcement has cleaned up a lot of the racing. While accidents are still common, mechanical retirements are far less frequent. 2026 has drastic rule changes for what will be allowed in the build of an F1 car, so mechanical reliability may sharply increase next year, especially with the entrance of the new Cadillac team.

For the current 2025 season, 15 races are now complete and only four drivers were not able to start a race (for various reasons), giving us 296 driver starts so far. There have been thirty-three retirements so far, either because of a crash or a mechanical failure, meaning the drivers that have started a race are finishing 88.9% of the time.

Three of those retirements came in this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix. But, before getting to those, a look back at how the weekend started would be appropriate. Despite a dominate performance throughout all three practice sessions and the first two rounds of qualifying, Lando Norris was only able to get a second place starting position in his McLaren, losing out to his teammate Oscar Piastri who got pole position.

Behind them, local hero Max Verstappen (who competes under the Dutch nationality) started his Red Bull in third position, followed by a phenomenal qualifying performance by rookie Isack Hadjar who was in fourth in his Racing Bull. George Russell started his Mercedes in fifth, then Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), Liam Lawson (Racing Bull), Carols Sainz (Williams), and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) rounded out the top ten.

Verstappen got a great launch off the line when the race started, passing Norris for second and challenging Piastri for the lead. He started on the softest tires to get a better launch which he used to great effect, but the tires started giving up and Norris was able to pass Verstappen fairly easily on lap 9 (out of 72). After getting past Verstappen, Norris quickly built up a more than fifteen second gap as he raced after his teammate for the lead.

The two McLaren cars of Piastri and Norris made leading a race look easy as they outpaced the rest of the field. Norris tried to close the gap to challenge his teammate, but could not find a way to stay within the one second needed for a Drag Reduction System (DRS) boost. Unchallenged by anyone else for most of the race, the McLaren duo only saw a cars in their rear-view mirror when there was a safety car.

The first of the safety car periods happened on lap 23 when Lewis Hamilton drove his Ferrari into the barriers of Turn 3, losing control of his car on the damp track outside of the racing line. This provided all racers with the opportunity for a quick pit stop and bunched up the field, but it also meant Norris no longer had a chance to differ his strategy from Piastri, something he did well in Hungary earlier.

A second safety car period came on lap 53 when Hamilton’s Ferrari teammate Leclerc was spun into the same Turn 3 barriers when Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli tried an audacious inside move that did not work out. Again the cars bunched up, but again, Norris was not able to try anything different and could not catch his teammate after the cars restarted.

The third and final safety car period came on lap 65, fewer than 10 laps from the end of the race, when Norris’ McLaren ground to a halt with a mechanical failure, the smell of smoke being reported by Norris a few corners before he stopped. Though this bunched up the field one final time, Piastri was able to keep a briefly charging Verstappen from getting by and easily cruised on to a win. Verstappen brought joy to his Dutch fans by claiming second place, and everyone celebrated Hadjar’s first career F1 podium in just his fifteenth ever race.

For Norris, everything was heartbreaking about his car’s retirement. Though he wrecked his car in Canada, it was his own mistake that he quickly owned up to. Here, he had no agency in the outcome with his car just giving up on him. As the two McLaren cars are competing for the championship in 2025 with no other driver having a feasible chance of passing them at this point, seeing the drivers challenge one another on track is far more interesting than having things like mechanical failures decide their fates.

This was the first mechanical failure for McLaren since the first race of 2023, a race that also happened to be the debut for Piastri. In the next 60 races, no mechanical issues came up during the race for either McLaren driver. Now, with the championship spread only 9 points between Piastri and Norris and the drivers in first and second place during the race, this mechanical problem forced Norris out and the championship gap is now at 34 points.

While that total is not unsurmountable for Norris, it relieves a lot of pressure for Piastri and swings the momentum back away from Norris who was recently closing the gap on his teammate. If the season ends and Piastri wins the championship by anything more than seven points, the difference between first and second place in points for an F1 race, Norris will look back ruefully on this race.

Wasting no time getting back to the 2025 season, F1 cars will be back on track again on Sunday, Sept. 7, at 9 a.m. Eastern Time as they race around the historic Monza track in Italy.