Dutch delight as fans party to the Max

ZANDVOORT, the Netherlands — Max Verstappen savored a "special" home win in a chaotic, deluge-hit and red-flagged Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday to match Sebastian Vettel's record run of nine consecutive victories.

Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin took second with Alpine's Pierre Gasly completing the podium at Zandvoort.

"Fantastic job, the weather didn't make it easy for us," said Red Bull's double world champion.

The home favorite's 11th success from the 13 races staged this season extended his lead to 138 points in the championship over teammate Sergio Perez, who finished fourth.

"I'm incredibly proud, I had goosebumps with the national anthem playing at the start.

"Even with all the bad weather and the rain, the fans were still going at it, so an incredible atmosphere," said Verstappen, to roars of delight from his orange army of supporters.

"He's done it, matched the nine victories of Sebastian, I mean what a performance today," said Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

Red Bull's latest display of dominance in trying circumstances extended its record unbeaten run to 14, stretching back to Abu Dhabi last year.

In front of his partying fans, Verstappen maintained his iron hold over Zandvoort since the circuit carved into the dunes by the North Sea rejoined the F1 calendar. This was his third straight win from pole.

A carnival atmosphere greeted the grid at the start as the sell-out crowd took the attendance to 305,000 over the weekend.

Unlike Red Bull's metronomic form, the weather was unpredictable, a thunderstorm rolling off the North Sea toward the track.

At lights out at the seaside, Verstappen got off to a flier, holding off his front-lane companion Lando Norris of McLaren into turn one as the rain arrived.

A fleet of cars came in to switch from dry to soft tires, leaving Perez leading from Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo.

In a personal landmark, Liam Lawson, the New Zealand rookie AlphaTauri called up to replace the injured Daniel Ricciardo, clocked an early fastest lap in his first-ever grand prix.

But he was then slapped with a 10-second time penalty for impeding in the pit lane.

Verstappen was in fourth, 14 seconds off his Mexican teammate, after a frantic opening four laps.

The Dutch driver charged past Gasly and Zhou to go in hot pursuit of Perez, nine seconds up the road.

On a drying track, Verstappen pitted, with Perez doing likewise to give back the lead to the local hero on lap 13.

Logan Sargeant then embedded his Williams in the barrier, triggering a safety car on lap 16.

"I don't know what happened man, I crashed," the American rookie muttered disconsolately, getting out of the car and collapsing on a nearby dune, his head in his hands.

The safety car came in on lap 22, Verstappen bunching the field up before putting his foot to the floor as Perez was forced to fend off Alonso. "Darker clouds are coming in," Verstappen told his pits in arguably the fastest weather forecast ever delivered, his car traveling at 250 kph.

Charles Leclerc was forced to retire his damaged Ferrari 20 laps from the end.

Seven-lap dash

The weather gods appeared to be the only obstacle between Verstappen and victory. "We are expecting rain, some of it heavy, 10 laps from the end," he was informed.

As the crowd readied their ponchos, the promised deluge arrived, triggering chaos, with a flurry of pit stops and cars losing control forcing the race to be red-flagged with eight laps to go.

The 45-minute delay gave the track DJs some unexpected extra work as track marshals did an impromptu conga-line dance down the straight.

The cars were eventually back out behind the safety car. When that disappeared, racing resumed under a rolling start procedure with the race reduced to a seven-lap dash to the checkered flag.

Verstappen held on for a hard-earned victory and the Dutchman can now look forward to Monza next weekend when he has the chance to claim the F1 winning streak record outright.

AFP