The Orange Army came out in full force to Zandvoort for Max Verstappen’s home race, but two Silver Arrows threatened to spoil the reigning world champion’s route to a Dutch Grand Prix repeat victory.
Keyword: threatened.
Despite the surging Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell and a lengthy safety car after Valtteri Bottas came to a stop on the main straight on lap 55, Verstappen emerged victorious for the second consecutive year. Orange flares and fireworks erupted as the Dutchman crossed finish line with Russell and Charles Leclerc following suit in second and third place, respectively.
“It was not a straightforward race,” said Verstappen, who had to overtake Hamilton on the restart. “We had to push the whole race. Of course, with Safety Car, the Virtual Safety Car making the right calls, it was always a bit of question mark but it worked out really well once we got back to the soft tires, we had great pace again.”
The 24-year-old later added, “It’s always special to win your home grand prix….I’m proud to be Dutch.”
Sunday’s second place finished marked Russell’s best of the season as he continues to embody the nickname Mr. Consistency. Charles Leclerc finished third. Meanwhile, teammate Hamilton ended the day in fourth, and Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez came in fifth. The rest of the top 10 is as follows: Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll.
Verstappen now holds a 109-point lead in the driver standings ahead of Leclerc, who moved up to second again after his showing at the Dutch Grand Prix. However, he is tied at 201 points with Pérez. The Dutchman has held the championship lead since the Spanish Grand Prix and has recorded six of his 10 wins this season since that May weekend.
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Here’s three takeaways from Holland where a three-team battle continued to brew, two of which will leave for Monza facing many questions.
Safety cars brought a stop-and-go dramatic flare.
Safety cars, whether it be the actual vehicle or the virtual option, typically tend to make a race interesting. But for the Dutch Grand Prix, a stop-and-go, only to stop once again from Yuki Tsunoda, left some surprised.
The Japanese driver stopped on-track and complained about his tires not fitting correctly, only to be told by AlphaTauri that all was well. Tsunoda pitted, and while the team put fresh tires on, two mechanics reached inside of the cockpit to re-tighten his seatbelts after he loosened them on track.
He was sent back on track. However, just a few corners later, Tsunoda came to a stop and retired from the race. According to formula1.com, the Japanese driver reported a driveshaft issue.
At first, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto felt it was “an unlucky situation” for Leclerc, who pitted just before the VSC. But, he was “a bit surprised” that AlphaTauri released Tsunoda while he had a problem.
The Japanese driver was later reprimanded by the FIA for “driving on track in unsafe condition” after loosening his belts. AlphaTauri’s chief engineer of vehicle performance, Claudio Balestri, revealed that the problem was a “car failure” in the team’s post-race release.
Up until this moment, the race looked like Verstappen would run away with the victory, and he got essentially a free pit stop with Tsunoda’s virtual safety car. Mercedes also double-stacked their drivers as the duo pitted for mediums, setting their sights on chipping away at Verstappen’s lead. The Dutchman, though, had a 12-second lead over Hamilton, who said over the radio despite having a podium position in reach: “That VSC has stuffed us.”
On lap 55, five laps after the race resumed from VSC, Bottas’s Alfa Romeo came to a stop on the start-finish line, triggering a full safety car a lap later. A series of cars dove into the pits, looking for any advantage in the final stretch as the safety car neutralized the race.
Hamilton, though, stayed out as his teammate, Verstappen, Pérez and both Ferraris pitted for different tires. The world champion said over the team radio moments before a small lock-up, “It’s going to be hard to keep that car behind me now.”
Was Mercedes’s late gamble worth the risk?
Hamilton looked poised to claim his first win of the season, that is until the Silver Arrows decided to take a strategy risk.
The team opted to leave the seven-time world champion on mediums as he had the lead when Red Bull decided to pit Verstappen for softs. During the same safety car period, Mercedes pitted Russell for softs, which placed him behind the Dutchman when Russell emerged on track.
Catastrophe struck for Hamilton as the call backfired and he started dropping down the grid, first with Verstappen quickly overtaking him on the start and then his own teammate following suit several laps later.
Hamilton, who finished fourth after Leclerc also passed him, made his frustrations known over the team radio, which he later apologized for. He said, in part, “I was just on the edge of breaking point with emotions and my apologies to the team because I don’t even remember what I said, I just lost it for a second. But I think they know that there is just so much passion and I want to look at it as a glass half full. We came here struggling from last race, we were fighting against the Red Bulls today, we were quicker than most at many points.
“Without the safety car I think we’d have been challenging them for the win at the end on the one-stop which I don’t think the others could do.”
Team principal Toto Wolff did empathize with Hamilton, telling Sky Sports F1, “It is highly emotional for the driver, you are that close to be racing for the win and then you’ve been eaten up, so it is clear that every emotion comes out.”
Wolff, though, did deny that the move was not a strategy error.
“You, as the driver in the cockpit, you are alone and you don’t see what is happening. We discussed at the moment, are we taking risks for the race win? Yes, we are taking risks,” Wolff said to Sky. “He had a tire that was five laps old, the medium, holding position was the right thing to do. At the end, it didn’t work out for him, but I’d rather take the risk to win the race with Lewis rather than finish second and third.
“Lewis was ahead, so you always have a little bit longer with the call [for those behind]. You can do two things; you can either pit Lewis and lose track position against Verstappen and leave George out screwed, or you can pit both, screwed. So it was worth taking the risk. If you do that [leave both out] you have both on an old tyre, but this would have guaranteed second and third and we wouldn’t have raced for the win with Lewis.”
Would it have been better for Mercedes to also pit Hamilton for soft tires? Wolff didn’t feel that would have worked given the two Silver Arrows would be behind Verstappen.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, though, was surprised by the late pit call. The team opted to pit Verstappen instead of leaving him on hard tires so that he wouldn’t be “exposed.”
“You’ve got your home driver, leading in front of 105,000 people, and you decide to pit him for the soft tires and concede track position behind two Mercedes,” Horner said, per Autosport. “I was quite surprised that they didn’t leave George out strategically as a rear gunner for Lewis. When he pitted, it gave a straight fight between Max and Lewis with a tire offset.
“By the time they came past us on the pit wall, Max was already alongside, and thereafter, it was a matter of controlling the race.”
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Race day pace continues to elude Ferrari.
The Prancing Horse may have had one driver on the podium this weekend, but some mistakes were made neverthless.
The lack of pace, though, is the larger problem to focus on compared to a botched pit stop for Sainz, Binotto said to Sky Sports F1. The Spaniard remained stationary for a lengthy first pit stop after the left rear tire was not prepared in time. Binotto said to reporters after the race, “On the first one [stop] what we did was we knew that Lewis [Hamilton] was preparing himself for a pit stop that could have undercut of ourselves.
“We tried to react simply to stay ahead of him which was the best way to keep track position, because we knew Lewis was very fast in the first stint of the race. When we saw the pit crew of Mercedes in pitlane, we called our driver to pit but that was when he was in the last corner, and it was too late for the mechanics to be ready. It was too late as a call based on our judgement.”
Additionally, a spare tire gun was left on the edge of Ferrari’s pit box while Sainz waited for his tire, resulting in Red Bull’s Perez running over it when departing from his pit.
Things, though, continued to spiral for Sainz as he was later penalized for an unsafe release, something both he and Binotto disagree with. Sainz gave a similar response as the team principal, commenting, per formula1.com, “That wasn’t an unsafe release. I was launched into the pit lane correctly, but the problem is that I had to brake to not take a McLaren guy out of his life. Because I took avoiding action, they give you a penalty – I find this very frustrating and I’m going to speak with the FIA now because I don’t understand it.”
Sainz was posed the question on what Ferrari does need to improve on, and he gave a similar answer that he and Binotto have echoed in recent race weekends—pace.
“It’s race pace, no, where we’re missing? I’m not happy with how the car felt in the race, it was super tricky to drive, we were always fighting the rear a lot—a lot of overheating—and we need to find out why the car isn’t as strong in the race as it is in quali.”
Despite finishing P2 and P3 in qualifying this weekend, the Prancing Horse has struggled with race pace for three consecutive races now, Binotto said after Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix. The team principal drew a comparison to the Hungarian Grand Prix, which was before summer break.
Binotto said that in the Netherlands, they were “competitive” in qualifying, but come race day, “we are not competitive enough and that makes life certainly a lot more difficult not only because we cannot fight for the win with Max but because then we do not have the peace as well to keep the Mercedes behind.
“I think it’s now, as I said, three races in a row that we’re not at our what should be our potential…And that’s something that we need to address as soon as possible because there are a few races which are left from now to the end of the season.”
With just seven races to go, Red Bull holds a 135-point lead over Ferrari and the Silver Arrows are just 30 points behind the Prancing Horse. The team has faced much criticism throughout the season, the latest being from former world champion Nico Rosberg. He said to Sky Sports F1, “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.”
In response to the comments, Binotto told reporters, “I think it’s so easy to speak when you’re outside, and so I can do the job as he’s doing. And everyone can be capable as doing the job and simply criticize.”
The team boss held firm, though, that Ferrari “will not change people” and that “performance is what counted the most today.”
“It has proven that [in] sport, what’s more important is simply the stability and make sure that you’re improving day by day, and race after race. So we’ve got great people in the team. We are a great team. I have no doubt on that. It took years and experience all teams to be at the front.”
