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Hamilton left disappointed with Zandvoort leaving: 'Heritage GPs important'
- Estéban den Toom
After 2026, the Dutch Grand Prix will not be the F1 Calendar. The race in Zandvoort always ensures sold-out grandstands, but after 2026 that will be a thing of the past. Lando Norris already joked that Max Verstappen would have to pay for the race himself out of his own pocket. Carlos Sainz, Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton are not happy either to see the country no longer have a GP weekend in the future.
Carlos Sainz denounces disappearance of Dutch GP
Carlos Sainz sees that this is a 'delicate matter'. "I don't fully understand the whole picture of why Zandvoort may or may not stay longer after the 2026 season. I think as a whole, the sport has definitely moved towards having more races outside of Europe than in Europe, probably for economic and obviously political and economical reasons for the sport. In an ideal world, in my opinion, the Formula One season should have around 20 races."
He continued: "Out of those 20 races, I strongly believe six to eight of them should be in Europe because that's where the sport comes from. All of the other should remain rotational. If Zandvoort cannot keep the budget to run a Formula One race when some other races Can, it doesn't mean Zandvoort should completely disappear from the calendar but maybe come back every two or three years to give all the Dutch fans and all the support of Max an opportunity to watch Max."
"The same would apply to Spain, the same would apply to the UK if that's ever the case. Even if these old school circuits, European circuits that maybe don't have the big budgets that outside of Europe, they have these budgets, still find a way to give them the opportunity to keep coming back to a calendar now and then. I don't know if it's doable or not, but in my ideal F1 calendar scenario, I would try and fit that in," Sainz said about the matter.
Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton agree on Zandvoort
McLaren driver Piastri fully agreed with Sainz. "We need to be careful as a sport not to get rid of all the tracks that we all grew up racing on and loving. I think if you ask most of the drivers on the grid, their favorite track, maybe apart from Suzuka, is probably guaranteed to be in Europe somewhere. We need to be careful to not get rid of all of these all of these tracks," Piastri said.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton also expressed his appreciation to the Dutch fans, and explains that a certain category of weekends should always have a place in the competition. "I think it's really sad to be losing Zandvoort, particularly as the crowd is incredible there. We have such a huge following, obviously, mostly for Max, but in general, the fans are what make the sport what it is."
"And then there are several races in the calendar. I'm not going to mention which ones, but you know which ones, which don't have a lot of people that come yet. Financially, obviously, they can cover, I guess, whatever the cost is. So I don't know. I think the business is doing very, very well. I think we've got to make sure we hold on to the heritage races, which Zandvoort for me is one of those," Hamilton said.
This article was written in collaboration with Kada Sárközi
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