Zandvoort is proud: "We've realized the impossible"

The Dutch Grand Prix would be held today on May 3rd for the first time in 35 years. Zandvoort is fully upgraded to a FIA Grade 1 circuit. The whole of the Netherlands was ready for it and yet it remains quiet.

"It could have been so beautiful", say circuit director Robert van Overdijk and Jan Lammers to the NOS. "A legendary weekend. How we would have liked to share this with the world. The whole weekend we are confronted with what could have been. That's frustrating, but we are of the half-full glass."

"My view is an empty straight stretch where thirty thousand bright orange people would have been", says van Overdijk. "That hurts, but I'm not going to hang a weepy story. I'll let the pride rule. We've heard so many times that it was hopeless to turn that old gang into a beautiful Formula 1 worthy circuit. And look, we've made the impossible a reality."

"You can act dramatically until everyone falls into each other's arms crying, but you don't solve anything that way", says Lammers. "We're not the nags. A year ago there was a refurbishment here. We have the future, but we have to wait patiently for the future to start."