And here’s our report from a triumphant day for Max Verstappen. That’s all from me – thanks for reading!
Verstappen speaks: “As you can hear, it’s just incredible. The expectations very high and it’s never easy to fulfil that but i’m so happy to win here. To take the lead in the championship, it’s just an amazing day. the start was very important, we did that very well. Mercedes made it very difficult but we countered all the time really well and we can be really pleased with the whole team performance today.”
Lewis Hamilton: “What a race, what a crowd! It’s been an amazing weekend. Max did a good job so congratulations to him. I gave it everything, flat out, Pushed as hard as I could but they were just too quick for us. The final lap was the best part of the race for me – this track is incredible, so a single lap, low fuel … this is now one of my favourite tracks. I can’t wait to come back next year.”
The top 10:
🏁 TOP 10 FINISHERS 🏁
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 5, 2021
1 VER
2 HAM
3 BOT
4 GAS
5 LEC
6 ALO
7 SAI
8 PER
9 OCO
10 NOR #DutchGP 🇳🇱 #F1 pic.twitter.com/ECRX2ZHtMm
Bottas, who did lead briefly when the other two pitted, will join them on the podium. Behind the leaders, Sainz held off Alonso in the battle for sixth, while Norris snuck in ahead of Ricciardo for a point. Full results coming up…
Lap 72/72: He can indeed. That’s soften the blow for Hamilton, but he never truly threatened to triumph on a day when his team Mercedes got the strategy wrong. Nor will that lap prevent him being leapfrogged at the top of the drivers’ standings.
Max Verstappen wins the Dutch GP!
Lap 72/72: Verstappen cruises round the final lap and takes the win by a hefty margin of 23secs. The crowd go wild. Meanwhile can Hamilton take fastest lap off his teammate?
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Lap 70: … but Bottas has been told that wasn’t the reason for pitting.“Precautionary,” he’s told, “tyre vibrations.” Mercedes say they won’t be going for the fastest lap, - that’s for Hamilton. But Bottas goes and sets the fastest lap regardless!
Lap 69: Bottas pits for a second time - he wants fastest lap. But it’s a slow stop. And Hamilton also pits again. And that, surely, is that.
Lap 68: Perez passes Norris, wheel-to-wheel, round the outside of turn one and gets his elbows out to take ninth.
Lap 66: Norris and Perez are neck and neck in the battle for ninth, while Alonso - currently seventh - is hunting down Sainz with intent.
Lap 64: Giovinazzi has dropped out of the top 10 to 14th, while Ricciardo has slipped from 10th to 11th. “Gap at 3.8s. I think his tyres are done,” says a Red Bull engineer to Verstappen – referring of course to Hamilton.
Lap 62: Hamilton reports that his tyres area wearing off. Perez now in the points in 10th. Ten laps to go.
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Lap 60: Mercedes to Hamilton: “Priority now is to try and get to the end of the race on this tyres. Take something at the end for the fastest lap.” Ahead of him, Versatppen zips round the circuit in flawless style to stretch his lead to 2.5secs.
Lap 59: Verstappen’s lead has steadied to about a second and a half. But he’s starting to come up behind some backmarkers so will have to be careful here. He’s 13 laps away from taking the lead in the driver’s championship in front of his home fans.
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Lap 56: Hamilton takes another four-tenths out of Verstappen’s leads with a fastest lap.
Lap 55: But despite his complaints, Hamilton is only 1.3secs behind Verstappen. Perez passes Ricciardo into 10th.
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Lap 53: “No power,” says Tsunoda. Hamilton’s frustration continues: “They’re just so fast, man. Killing my tyres to keep up.”
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Tsunoda retires
It’s not immediately apparent why. Meanwhile Perez, in 11th and 4secs off Ricciardo, is eyeing points, with Norris up to ninth ahead of the Australian.
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Lap 49: “I’m not going to make it to the end on these tyres,” says Hamilton. Perez pits again, returning behind Williams in 12th. It was a hydraulic issue that forced Mazepin out of the race.
Lap 47: Gasly is sitting pretty in fourth, 7secs ahead of Leclerc. Leading by nearly 4secs, Verstappen is 25 laps from a glorious homecoming.
Mazepin retires
The Russian is wheeled into the garage. Meanwhile Hamilton is turning mutinous: “Doesn’t seem to be an advantage,” he says into the team radio. “Called our bluff too soon. There was still so much life left in that last tyre, I don’t know why you rushed it.”
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Lap 41: Red Bull do the same as before, sending Verstappen into the pit straight away. He goes for hard compounds, with Hamilton in mediums - quicker, but used. Verstappen leads by 3.2secs, with Hamilton another 4secs ahead of Bottas.
Lap 40: Hamilton pits from second! And emerges into traffic, all lapped cars in Stroll, Russell and Ricciardo. It was a quick stop, but badly timed! Mercedes have rolled the dice – and they’d have wanted a better outcome than that.
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Lap 38: Yellow flag: Vettel spins on turn three back comes away undamaged. Perhaps more importantly, Bottas is forced to dodge the Aston Martin, going round the outside, losing about a second and a half.
Lap 36: Leclerc pits, handing fourth place to Gasly, whose tyres are ageing fast. Perez’s good work from the back continues - he’s up to 11th.
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Lap 34: “[Verstappen] is getting super lucky with traffic, man,” Hamilton’s told over radio. George Russell gets a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Lap 31: Bottas pits, staying third, and Verstappen stretches his lead to around the 1.5secs mark. Sainz has also pitted from fifth, coming out behind Gasly
Lap 30: Bottas can’t hold off Verstappen any longer, the crowd favourite enjoying DRS on the main street. And Bottas lets Hamilton straight past, so our front three is back to how it was– but Verstappen’s lead now less than a second.
Updated
Lap 29: Gasly loops past Alonso round the outside to take sixth. Giovinazzi, Russell and Stroll have all pitted.
Lap 27: “Tyres are definitely starting to drop, but can drop a few more laps,” yelps Bottas, whose lead over Verstappen has been cut to 4secs. The Dutchman is told that catching and passing Bottas quickly will be “absolutely crucial”.
Lap 26: “Last set was rear left limited, as expected,” Mercedes tell Hamilton.
Lap 25: Verstappen is hunting down Bottas and will be level with him within three laps at this rate. Perez picks off Tsunoda to take 14th.
Lap 24: Bottas has 9.7secs over Verstappen - but will his one-stop strategy work out? “It’s going to be interesting,” says Christian Horner. “I think the two-stop looks quicker. If they’re leaving Bottas out it’s definitely strategic.”
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Lap 22: Verstappen reacts, covering Hamilton, and does so almost a second quicker - 2.9secs to Hamilton 3.6secs. Bottas leads.
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Lap 20: Lewis Hamilton pits from second. So that’ll be a two-stopper, surely. It’s not the quickest but he returns to the track well ahead of Gasly.
Lap 18: Bottas continues to drop, now 7secs back on his team-mate. Mercedes need more from him if they’re to turn the screw on Red Bull. There’ll be 72 laps this afternoon, by the way.
Lap 17: Perez has clocked up the fastest lap. Not a lot of movement in the places so far, with Russell unable to move past his 11th placed start, with Stroll and Norris behind him, as they began.
Lap 15: Latifi screams past Mazepin at turn one. McLaren to Norris: “OK Lando. We still think Plan B. Be patient. Our time will come.” In ninth, Ricciardo’s early mechanical problems seem to have settled.
Lap 13: Vettel has also pitted - on go the hards. Meanwhile Verstappen’s lead has stretched to about 3secs. Bottas has dropped back a bit.
Lap 11: Still no change in the top six. Perez has changed from hards to mediums. Red Bull seem to think that Hamilton is on a two-stop strategy.
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Lap 9: Ocon has been complaining about Alonso’s movement as they went into turn three. The front three have put distance between themselves and the hunting pack. Bottas in third is told to play the “long game”. Perez pits.
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Lap 7: Hamilton isn’t happy: “These tyres. I’m going to struggle to keep this pace.” The gap ahead of him has levelled out at about 2.5secs. Schumacher pits, swapping softs for hards.
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Lap 5: Teammates Ocon and Alonso are sparring for seventh, the Spaniard holding the position having made up two places in the first lap.
Lap 4: Verstappen’s lead is now at more than 2secs, while Hamilton is similarly far ahead of Bottas in third. Ricciardo, his car smoking a few minutes ago, has been told to keep going.
Lap 2: Verstappen already leads by 1.7secs – phenomenal. Back in ninth, Ricciardo’s car looks like it might be losing oil. “I don’t think that car is going to be running for too much longer,” reckons Jenson Button.
And we're off
And it’s a great start for Verstappen, who leads Hamilton from the off and puts daylight behind him out in front. No change in the top six, but Alonso surges to seventh, GIovinazzi dropping to 10th.
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And the cars line up on the grid, engines revving…
The cars are out for the formation lap, with plenty taking the high line around the eye-popping turn three, Verstappen leading the way.
How they start:
1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
2. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes
4. Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri
5. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
6. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
7. Antonio Giovinazzi, Alfa Romeo
8. Esteban Ocon, Alpine
9. Fernando Alonso, Alpine
10. Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren
11. George Russell, McLaaren
12. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
13. Lando Norris, McLaren
14. Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri
15. Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin
16. Robert Kubica, AlfaRomeo
17. Mick Schumacher, Haas
18. Nikita Mazepin, Haas
Pit Lane: Nicholas Latifi
Pit Lane: Sergio Perez
One minute to go.
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A reminder that Robert Kubica replaces Kimi Raikonnen, who tested positive for Covid, for Alfa Romeo today His teammate Antonio Giovinazzi starts seventh.
Ted Kravitz predicts anarchy: “With the safety cars and the crazy race we think we’re going to get around here, anybody can do anything.”
Christian Horner is hoping from a favour from Pierre Gasly, who starts fourth. “The best thing he can do is split the Mercedes for us,” he says. “If he can get in between the two of them, that does take away some of their strategic options.”
The drivers line up for F1’s We Race As One message, and then we get a belting Dutch anthem. The crowd go bananas.
“It’s been like being in a festival for three days,” says Christian Horner, which is nice. (Presumably he doesn’t mean Glasonbury: the sun has been beaming down on Zandvoort all weekend.) On Perez, he says: “We’ve changed the engine and other parts so hopefully that avoids penalties for him later in the year. It’ll be fascinating to see how much progress he can make.”
Sergio Pérez had a shocker yesterday, going out in Q1 in 16th for Red Bull after he failed to make the line in time to put in his final lap. It leaves Red Bull with just the one car at the front against Mercedes’ two – with the latter team with a few more tactical options this afternoon. Perez will start from the pit lane today – alongside Nicholas Latifi – after an engine change.
On telly, Nico Rosberg is talking us through his pre-race toilet routines (he couldn’t be bothered walking through the crowd to the bogs so just went in the car).
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The last F1 winner here: Niki Lauda, in 1985
On that pit lane. The directive states that any team who “impedes another car in the fast lane or prevents another car from stopping in or leaving its allocated pit-stop position may be considered an infringement of the principles of fairness”. Meanwhile, the cars make their laps to the grid.
Lewis Hamilton, talking over the deafening noise of the fans, is keeping coy on today’s strategy: “If we can keep up with Max, we can hopefully apply a little bit of pressure. it’ll be difficult – we need to jeep ourselves in the game and push as hard as we can to race them.”
Zandvoort is notoriously limited in overtaking opportunities, has a perilously tight pit lane and has been upgraded since then banking in turn three increased to 19 degrees as well as the addition of 18-degree banking at the final corner.
Some lovely pre-race reading here, on the rich history of today’s circuit:
Preamble
After the farce, the fun? Let’s hope so. Last week’s washout of a Belgian GP was a weekend to forget, the rain wreaking havoc and the eventual “race” lasting just a few minutes and happening entirely behind a safety car.
Zandvoort has been the perfect antidote to all that. The sun’s been shining, the stands are thronging with orange-clad aficionados, and the big race is perfectly poised. Max Verstappen took pole yesterday in front of an adulatory home crowd, but he was pushed to the limit by Lewis Hamilton – still three points ahead in the standings – who relished the challenge in front of him. “What a track,” he beamed afterwards.
The last time Hamilton and Verstappen started together with one of them in front of home fans, high drama ensued. More of the same would be welcome – although after last week, the mere prospect of a race is welcome enough. Stay tuned!
