But by qualifying the car was back on song, as he narrowly took pole position from Leclerc.
As Verstappen later admitted, a race victory was never going to be easy, especially as in addition to the Ferraris being on a pace close to the Red Bulls, Mercedes had Lewis Hamilton and George Russell start the race from fourth and sixth on the grid respectively, on medium tyres, whereas the other front runners started on soft tyres.
That signalled the Mercedes duo would be going for one-stop, and the race would all be about strategy, and so it proved.
Although Verstappen led from Leclerc in the opening laps, pit stops were soon being made after just 12 laps of the 72-lap race. By the time all the frontrunners, with the exception of the two Mercedes had pitted, it began to look like Hamilton might be on for his first victory of the season. He has won a race every year of his 15 years in F1, a record he would like to extend into his 16th season, and this race presented him with the best opportunity.
But it wasn't to be, because despite having the lead, safety-car interventions and a "stuff up" as he put in by bringing him in for a second stop and putting him on medium tyres instead of soft tyres, whereas the team did the opposite for Russell, meant he was overtaken by Verstappen, Leclerc and his own teammate in the last stint. Instead of possibly winning the race, he wasn't even on the podium, while Russell overtook Leclerc to finish second.
The majority of the 105,000 race fans were in Orange Army T-shirts, and were in party mode by the time Verstappen had his second Dutch GP win.
While Max was delighted, Lewis was fuming on the team radio that they had "****** screwed" him. He later ranted "I can't believe you guys ****** me. Can't tell you how p****** I am."
They probably got the message. Not exactly a Christian one for someone who places so much faith in God and has a "God is love" tattoo on his neck.
Yet on the cool-down lap back to the pits, after team boss Toto Wolff had apologised to Lewis for the mistake in the second pit stop, he was back on the radio, quite contrite.
"To all the mechanics, fantastic job today. They were the best pit stops we've had all year, so thank you for your continued efforts. Let's keep pushing, we still got points today."
A hypocritical Hamilton cannot command respect. When he clashed with Fernando Alonso at Spa and accepted he was at fault, he was quick to criticise Alonso for calling him an "idiot".
But the two did make up, as Alonso apologised for his heat of the moment comment and said he had great respect for Hamilton. He went to the Mercedes motorhome at Zandvoort to collect a Mercedes cap Hamilton had signed for him. Perhaps Lewis will apologise to Wolff and his race engineer Pete Bonnington, and present them with a signed cap also?
Post-race Hamilton had more to say to Sky F1.
"I think the guys were really, really on it today. We were all on it. and I really was hopeful we would get a one-two together as a team.
"I lost it for a second, but I think they know it's just so much passion and I want to look at is as a glass half full," he added. "Without the safety-car, I think we would have been challenging for the win at the end on the one stop, which I don't think the others could do."
Verstappen was the first to admit that his race was "not a straight-forward race".
"We had to push the whole race. With the Virtual Safety-Car making the right calls, always a bit of a question mark, but it worked out really well - once we got back to the soft tyres, we had pace again."
If Mercedes had left Russell out when almost everyone pitted under the safety-car, he would have ended up between Hamilton and Verstappen, making it more difficult for the world champion to get ahead. But as it happened, Hamilton was a sitting duck as the race was restarted.
"We timed it really well out of that last corner into the banking," Verstappen said.
"Then you could see the draft was quite strong. We got ahead so yeah, incredible to win again."
The reason for the safety-car was Yuki Tsunoda twice stopping out on circuit, for what he thought was a wheel problem, but turned out to be the differential. After the first stop, he drove back to the pits with a loosened seat belt and was reprimanded for driving in an unsafe condition.
Wolff was unimpressed with the second stop, suggesting it cost Hamilton the win. That set off conspiracy theorists who posted hateful comments in colourful language on social media, aimed at Alpha Tauri and Red Bull's strategist Hannah Schmitz.
That aside, Mercedes undoubtedly had a heated race debrief behind closed doors, despite Hamilton offering an olive branch for his passionate outburst with offensive swear words.
A similar debrief will have occurred at Ferrari in relation to Carlos Sainz after his team couldn't find tyres at his first pit stop. Then on his second stop he was involved in an unsafe pit-lane release into the path of Alonso's Alpine, incurring a five-second time penalty, dropping him from fifth across the finish line, to an eighth place result.
Former world champion Nico Rosberg, commenting for Sky F1 from his home in Monaco, couldn't believe what he saw.
"Oh my goodness," Rosberg said.
"Mattia Binotto keeps saying 'no, no, we don't need to make any changes, everything is going well', I mean, when is the day coming? It's not possible to carry on as it is. Even Formula 2 teams or Formula 3 teams do a better job at their strategy and pit-stops than Ferrari. So, you're in the pit and there's no tyre in a normal race. At some point, they really need to start making some changes."
Ferrari team principal Binotto said the botched pit stop occurred because the call to pit came too late, and in response to Rosberg said, "I think it is easy to speak when you are outside." But he accepted "these kinds of things should not happen".
It is almost impossible to see Verstappen being beaten even if some misfortune, like a serious race injury, prevented him from racing. It would take Leclerc or Perez to either win or come second in the remaining seven races, and Verstappen scoring no points, to stop him becoming a double world champion.
Still, Red Bull boss Christian Horner is not yet counting his chickens.
"We're in a great position, and we'd have to try quite hard to lose it now," Horner conceded. "Our approach has always been one race at a time, so we don't allow ourselves to think too far ahead."
Mercedes is already working on next year's car, and with Red Bull leading the Constructors' race by 135 points from Ferrari, a title it could clinch in Singapore, other teams are likely doing the same.
Who will drive for whom in 2023 became clearer after the Contracts Recognition Board ruled in favour of McLaren as to whether Oscar Piastri had a valid Alpine or McLaren contract. The latter confirmed it had agreed financial terms with Daniel Ricciardo for his exit from the team at year-end.
Alpine are now believed to have signed Pierre Gasly, with Red Bull releasing him according to adviser Helmut Marko, and are in discussions with Indycar driver Colton Herta to leave Andretti and join Alpha Tauri, if the FIA give him a super licence. Marko thinks that won't be a problem for a driver who has won seven Indycar races.
He is currently eighth in the driver's championship, with just one win this season, so his move to F1 will come as a surprise to many.
It is probably not good news for New Zealand's F2 driver, Liam Lawson, who recently became the Alpha Tauri reserve driver.
But the driver who should be most peeved is Ricciardo after learning Piastri signed the McLaren contract on July 4, the day after the British GP, yet the team had hinted after that date that Ricciardo may be staying if his results improved.
He says he has now spoken to both Piastri and his manager Mark Webber, both fellow Australians, and there is no ill feeling, as it's business and not personal. Ricciardo's remaining options are now replacing either Mick Schumacher at Haas, or Nicholas Latifi at Williams, although Nick de Vries or even Schumacher may have the Williams drive already. A sabbatical for Daniel looks more likely.
What is clear after the Dutch GP is that nobody will be replacing Verstappen as number one, this year at least. This weekend it is the Italian GP at Monza, a race ironically that Ricciardo won for McLaren last year. What a difference a year makes.
Sources: F1.com
