Circuit Zandvoort · Zandvoort
72 laps · 4.259 km per lap · Pirelli C2 Hard / C3 Medium / C4 Soft
Circuit Zandvoort sits among the coastal dunes of the Netherlands and returned to the Formula 1 calendar with a distinctive modern feature: steeply banked corners at Turn 3 (named for circuit designer John Hugenholtz) and the final Arie Luyendyk corner, both intended to keep speeds high through what would otherwise be tight, low-speed turns.
The lap is narrow throughout, following the natural contours of the dunes rather than a purpose-flattened site, which gives the circuit real character but leaves very little room for a following car to attempt a pass without a significant pace advantage.
Sea-level sand blowing onto the track surface and the circuit's tight, twisting nature combine to produce above-average tyre degradation, particularly through the technical middle sector away from the two banked corners.
Pirelli nominates the C2 Hard, C3 Medium and C4 Soft for Zandvoort. The combination of sustained lateral loading and the abrasive, sand-affected surface keeps degradation on the higher side of the calendar despite the relatively low top speeds.
Built to survive Zandvoort's demanding middle sector over a long stint. Most one-stop strategies rely on this compound to cover the back half of the race.
A common starting tyre and the anchor of two-stop plans, offering a clear pace advantage over the Hard while still managing a competitive stint length through the twisty layout.
Q3 runners start on the Soft. Its short life is compounded by Zandvoort's narrow, technical character, and given how difficult overtaking is here, converting Soft pace into track position early is essential.
With one of the lowest overtaking scores on the calendar, Zandvoort rewards qualifying and pit strategy execution far more than raw race pace. The narrow, dune-hugging layout leaves few realistic passing opportunities, so a driver who loses track position at the pit stop often has to fight hard just to hold station rather than recover it.
This makes the pit stop itself the single highest-leverage moment of the race — a clean, well-timed stop that doesn't lose a position is often worth more here than several laps of superior pace on track.
The standard plan given the difficulty of overtaking: start on the Medium, pit once for the Hard, and defend track position through the narrow middle sector rather than looking for passes that are unlikely to materialise.
For a driver who needs to make up ground, whether from a poor qualifying or an early incident. The extra pit stop carries real track-position risk given how hard passing is here, but consistently fresher tyres can close gaps that a single-stop strategy cannot.
Given how little overtaking is available, teams put a premium on pit crew execution here above almost anywhere else — a slow stop that costs a position can be effectively impossible to win back before the flag.
The main straight into the Tarzan hairpin is Zandvoort's clearest deployment zone, giving a driver with a well-charged battery a genuine chance at the circuit's best overtaking opportunity.
The two banked corners are unusual cases: because they're taken at sustained high speed with the banking helping generate grip, they offer neither strong harvesting nor an obvious deployment benefit, making the technical middle sector the circuit's primary source of energy recovery.
A two-stop is 4.4 s faster than the best one-stop in clean air.
Close call — race events can easily swing it.
One-stop pit window: lap 30–38 of 72
Single car, no traffic, track position or Safety Car — so PITWALL shows stop count and timing but no compound order: in 2026 the model prefers finishing on softs, while teams mostly ran medium → hard. Model circuit-1. How the model is calibrated →
Lando Norris won on Medium → Soft → Hard → Hard. Among 16 of 16 finishers with recorded strategies: 2 × one-stop, 10 × two-stop, 4 × three+ stops.
First pit stops: lap 11–36 (median 21).
Full race analysis →Build your strategy for Zandvoort in PITWALL. Nail the banked corners, defend track position through the twisty middle sector, and make every pit stop count.
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