F1 returned to the Netherlands after a 36 years hiatus with local hero Max Verstappen bringing home the win from Lewis Hamilton.
Red Bull has been one of the favorites for this year’s Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles since the F1 season started. The team’s consistent improvement and upgrades from last year’s RB16 shifted the championship momentum towards the Austrian outfit. As a result, its relative pace differential over the other teams throughout the race weekend is indicative of the progress made so far.
In Zandvoort, Red Bull had the upper hand over their rivals Mercedes during practice sessions as the latter was plagued with PU issues. Qualifying brought the top-tier teams a lot closer with Max scoring pole position, although it was nearly snatched by Hamilton with an impressive lap towards the end of Q3.
Valtteri Bottas secured P3 while ‘Checo’ Perez lost out due to heavy traffic and was trapped in the bottom five. Coming to the fight for third in the constructors’, the red outfit from Maranello had the edge over their Papaya orange rivals, securing P5 and P6 on the qualifying grid.
After two successive points finishes, the Williams of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi looked set for another stellar performance. Still, their chances were denied after pushing the limits of their car on the unforgiving circuit. Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi put on a decent lap to secure P7.
Later on race day, Perez and Latifi underwent a PU and front wing change, respectively, resulting in a pitlane start while the rest of the drivers lined up on the starting grid. Soon, the five lights went out; both rivals Max and Lewis got a great start off the line and zoomed away into the distance. Meanwhile, Bottas didn’t get a similar breakaway and was nearly swallowed by the pack, although he kept his position through the lap. Behind the top three, chaos and disorder ensued as others fought for a spot, particularly with two-time WC Fernando Alonso, who pulled off some risky maneuvers to gain a few places in the limited available space.
After a frantic first few laps, the action settled down for the drivers while the strategy games began for their teams. On Lap 5, Hamilton started playing into his adversaries’ minds by playing the Pirelli card, hinting at a double stop strategy. Positions remained relatively unchanged, except Perez, who was slowly moving up through the pack.
Things continued until Lap 21, when Hamilton entered the pits to switch to brand new Mediums with a 3.6-second pitstop. This trigger resulted in Red Bull pitting Max on the very same lap to switch to Mediums too and protect his current position with a 2.7-sec gap over Hamilton at the end of the pitlane.
The rest of the field remained relatively unchanged, except for Bottas, who inherited the race lead from Verstappen. Meanwhile, Checo continued to make his way up, securing P14 at L24 after overtaking AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. At the same time, Gasly pulled off an epic move around the outside of Alonso at Turn 4 to break into the top 6.
The gaps between Verstappen and Bottas then came tumbling down from 10 secs after the pitstop to DRS range by L30. The Red Bull driver positioned himself near the final corner to get a good launch from the left-hand bank towards the main straight. The race leader changed again on L31 with Max in P1, followed by Hamilton, who was allowed to pass after Bottas moved over to the side. The battle between the two championship rivals continued throughout the stint until the second round of pit stops at L40.
Hamilton switched to another set of Medium tires while the Flying Dutchman went for a set of Hard tires the very next lap, and that seemed to do the trick till the end of the race. Soon, Mercedes paid the price of its gamble after losing time to Red Bull and focused all its attention on snatching points for the fastest lap.
Outside the top three, there was a handful of overtakes and changes in track position, courtesy of Checo and Alonso who put on quite a show, taking away the monotony of a typical single-file race.
The second Red Bull driver went wheel-to-wheel with the McLarens of Ricciardo and Norris and lost a few bits of carbon fiber from the sidepods into Turn 1. Despite losing bits of bodywork to aggressive defending from Norris, Perez still finished P8 after starting from the pitlane—not bad.
Towards the closing stages of the Grand Prix, confusion ensued at the Mercedes pit wall on getting the fastest lap. Mercedes’ Head of Strategy, James Vowles, instructed Bottas to avoid getting the quickest lap at L70. However, with rumors of a drive to Alfa next season, the Finn still broke the lap record and made the job even harder for his teammate. Simultaneously in the midfield battle, Alonso overtook Sainz in the penultimate lap to secure P6.
In the end, the Flying Dutchman secured his first home GP win, followed by Hamilton and Bottas. The final top 10 includes Ver, Ham, Bot, Gas, Lec, Alo, Sai, Per, Oco, and Nor. It’s also worth noting that Checo was awarded the ‘Driver of the Day’ after an incredible run to the points from the pitlane start.
With the Dutch and Belgian GP victories added to his belt, Max retakes the championship lead by 3 points.
Onto Monza next!
