Zandvoort is getting ready to turn the page. After reviving the Dutch Grand Prix in 2021 and riding the wave of Max Verstappen-mania, the seaside circuit is preparing to step off the Formula 1 calendar when its deal expires after 2026 — and to invite some very American thunder in its place.
General director Robert van Overdijk says the decision isn’t about appetite; it’s about arithmetic. Unlike many modern F1 venues, Zandvoort doesn’t draw annual government subsidies to soften the sanctioning fee. That makes race week a high-wire act for the promoter, even with sellout crowds and those spectacular orange flares. Formula One Management wasn’t thrilled, van Overdijk admits, but it understood the logic.
So what fills the gap? Spectacle, if he has his way. “I personally like to look across the pond to America,” he told RacingNews365, name-checking IndyCar and NASCAR as prime candidates. He’s not being coy: Zandvoort’s banking at Turns 3 and 14 — an inspired addition during the pre-2021 overhaul — practically begs for big, heavy race cars leaning on sidewalls. The place was rebuilt to host showpiece events; it just doesn’t have to be F1.
There’s room on the calendar too. The circuit is allotted only four no-sound-limit weekends per year, and one opens up in 2027. That’s a golden ticket for a headline series that doesn’t carry F1-sized fees. NASCAR, freshly emboldened by its 2025 points race in Mexico City and continued international flirtations, is a plausible suitor. The Mexico weekend proved fans will turn out for something different — and Zandvoort’s amphitheatre vibe delivers exactly that. Logistically, the Cup Series’ 38-week grind makes any European hop a puzzle, but NASCAR has shown it can move mountains when the payoff is there.
IndyCar is the other obvious match. Its calendar is lighter, travel demands less punishing, and the racing would sing on Zandvoort’s quick, flowing ribbon. The series has long teased international expansion without pulling the trigger. A Dutch date could be the statement move it’s been missing — provided the economics line up.
None of this erases what Zandvoort and F1 rebuilt together. The pandemic-delayed 2021 comeback, the reprofiled corners, the municipal investment to move fans in and out — it all worked. But as van Overdijk put it, F1 will likely “shift its focus back to other continents” after 2026. The Netherlands might not see it again for a while, maybe ever.
If that sounds bleak, it shouldn’t. Zandvoort doesn’t feel like a circuit losing a race; it feels like a venue choosing its next headliner. And if that headliner arrives with a V8 burble or turbocharged open-wheel snarl, the dunes will still deliver a show.
