Max Verstappen has taken back-to-back victories to win the Dutch Grand Prix by four seconds to extend his lead in the championship after Mercedes messed up its strategy following the final safety car. The Dutch driver took the lead with ten laps to go after passing Lewis Hamilton with ten laps to go on the restart.
Mercedes had lost the lead to Verstappen when the dutchman undercut Lewis Hamilton and George Russell with twenty laps to go, that gave him the tyre advantage with twenty laps to go. It allowed Verstappen to launch his way past Russell and Hamilton at the restart before building a lead of four seconds to take victory at his home race.
The mess up on strategy also cost Hamilton third as in the closing laps Charles Leclerc found his way past Hamilton. Mercedes looked to have been on course for their first one-two of the season as the car showed to have better pace in the latter stages of the race, but it resulted in Hamilton dropping to fourth while Russell couldn’t chase down Verstappen on the final restart.
Charles Leclerc managed to split the Mercedes, the Ferrari driver found his way passed an increasingly frustrated Hamilton with seven laps to go. Hamilton saw almost a repeat of the way he lost in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen had fresher tyres providing more grip allowing him to sweep around the outside and take the lead at. Tarzan.
That then made him vulnerable to Russell and Leclerc who found their way past Hamilton and denied the seven time champion a podium. Mercedes was not the only team to see their race unravel, Ferrari’s mistake came early when they didn’t have the tyres ready for Carlos Sainz at his first stop, which also saw Leclerc lose out to Hamilton, with the Silver Arrows going for a one-stop race.
Sainz’s race unravelled at his first pit stop, when the team did not have his left rear tyre ready, Mattia Binotto said the call for him to pit had been made too late, when he was in the final corner, and did not give the mechanics time to ready the tyres. Leclerc was demoted to what was looking to be a fourth place by Mercedes’ strong race pace and one-stop strategy.
It was yet another operational error with the championship looking to end in Suzuka in six weeks time, if Verstappen can build a hundred and twelve point lead across the next three races. Ferrari also appeared to not have the pace to challenge Verstappen for victory, but finishing within a tenth was a narrower result than if their wasn’t the late safety car
Verstappen said, “It was not a straightforward race but we had to push, of course with safety car, virtual safety car, making the right calls. Always a bit of question mark but it worked out really well. Once we got back to the soft tyres we had great pace again.”
Russell added, “As a team today, we showed incredible pace, I know the team result wasn’t quite what we hoped for but this gives us a lot of confidence and a lot of faith moving forward.”
Ferrari had tried to cover off the threat to Leclerc by Mercedes switching him to hard tyres on lap forty-five, however,the race was neutered when Yuki Tsunoda stopped at Hunserug. The Japanese driver feared his wheels were not properly attached after his second stop back in the pack.
He got going again and returned to the pits where AlphaTauri spent thirty seconds checking something inside his cockpit, possibly his seat belts, before he rejoined but then did stop at Turn 4 saying he thought the differential was broken. That meant the virtual safety car was activated and Red Bull could bring Verstappen in for hards with a cheap pitstop, which preserved his lead.
In fact, it stayed exactly the same as Mercedes put Hamilton and Russell back onto the mediums – the former recognising the VSC had “stuffed” his previous charge on the one-stopper.
Hamilton blasted his team in an expletive-ridden radio message, and after the race team boss, Toto Wolff apologised but stressed the team were always going to take a “risk”. Hamilton, having calmed down slightly, praised the mechanics and the team’s result, with Mercedes now appearing Red Bull’s main challengers.
When Valtteri Bottas brought out the safety car ten laps later Mercedes stayed out while Red Bull and Ferrari stopped. Russell demanded Mercedes put him on the softs as he was losing tyre temperature in the mediums at low speed, which allowed Verstappen back into second behind Hamilton who remained on the yellow-walled compound.
Verstappen as the race progressed looked to be driving another championship drive, a bizarre set of events around Bottas retirement lead to him being third with Russell demanding soft tyres which then put him third making Hamilton a sitting duck on his eight-lap-old medium tyres.
Hamilton was overtaken by Verstappen on the start-finish straight immediately when the race restarted, and then dropped two more positions.
Sergio Perez finished fifth ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris, the three drivers moving up a pace after Sainz was given a penalty for an unsafe release. At his final stop, Ferrari had released Sainz into the path of Alonso and run over a wheel gun in a very messy stop where the team didn’t have the tyres ready.
But the race once again proved how feisty Alonso was as he came through the midfield to seventh on the road, he continued to prove that Alpine have pace in the fight with McLaren for fourth in the constructors. He finished almost a quarter of a second ahead of Esteban Ocon, on track, but Sainz’s penalty split the two.
Lance Stroll rounded out the top ten he finished four and a half tenths ahead of Pierre Gasly. Alex Albon continued to deliver strong results for Williams, although it wasn’t points he brought the car home twelfth ahead of Mick Schumacher. Stroll’s teammate Sebastian Vettel spilt the two Haas’s finishing three quarters of a second ahead of Kevin Magnussen.
Guanyu Zhou was sixteenth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, with Nicolas Latifi the final finisher a lap down.
Related
- DUTCH GP – Qualifying Result
- Max Verstappen Beats Charles Leclerc To Pole By Two Hundredths, As Sergio Perez Spins In Closing Moments
- DUTCH GP – Charles Leclerc Leads Ferrari One-Two Going Four Thousandths Ahead Of Carlos Sainz In Second Practice
- DUTCH GP – George Russell Leads A Mercedes One-Two In First Practice, As Max Verstappen Grinds To A Halt
- F1 Today – Dutch Prixview – 01/09/2022
- PRIXVIEW – Dutch Grand Prix
