Zandvoort in the rearview
Even a flood couldn't dampen the Dutch fans' spirits.
It was a slippery weekend in the Netherlands, but even changing conditions couldn’t stop Max from winning his home race and matching Sebastian Vettel’s record of 9 race wins in a row.
Aston Martin finally made it back to the podium and Gasly matched Ocon’s heights with another P3 for Alpine. The Orange Army showed out in full party-force and once again proved why Zandvoort is one of the coolest races on the calendar.
Max Verstappen makes it three in a row—and nine in a row—at the Dutch GP
Ever since the Dutch GP was added back to the calendar in 2021, Max’s home race has been an unreal show of support for a single driver. It is, essentially, the Verstappen GP in all but name. Much to his fans’ delight, Max’s win this weekend means that he’s won his home GP three years in a row—every year it’s been held.
He also matched Sebastian Vettel’s record of nine race wins in a row this weekend. That’s gotta feel crazy, matching the record at your home GP.
It wasn’t easy—changing conditions and tricky strategy calls made it more tense than usual—but in the end, it seems like nobody can beat Max at home.
Mercedes proves (once again) they need to revamp their strategy department
Once upon a time, all Mercedes strategists had to do was make the conservative call. Their car was so fast compared to everyone else that all they had to do was maintain track position. Even their pit stops didn’t need to be spectacular, they just needed to be fast enough it wouldn’t ruin their race.
Unfortunately, those days have long gone by—but Mercedes still seem to be living in them.
It was obvious once again here at the Dutch GP, where their pit stops were mediocre and their strategy was bad. It was bad in qualifying, where Hamilton went out in Q2, and it was bad during the race, where George Russell fell from P3 to P17… which with all the retirements means '“dead last.” Like, behind both Haas cars dead last.
Someone come fix them PLEASE come fix them. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are too good for their team strategy to be this bad. Toto Wolff is back with another sad quote, “That was absolutely subpar from all of us, and that includes me.” But nothing seems to change.
It was a terrible weekend for Daniel Ricciardo and Daniel Ricciardo fans (me)
I should clarify that I was already having an awful, awful day (ceiling of my apartment leaking. There’s a hole cut in the sheet rock now. It was a whole thing) when Daniel hit the wall, so I was already very fragile.
Long story short, Daniel Ricciarido came around a blind corner in FP2 and had to choose between sliding into Oscar (who had crashed there moments before) or slamming into the wall while holding the wheel. Of course he chose the wall, but because he was still holding onto the wheel, it whipped around and he broke a metacarpal.
I was a mess. Honestly had no idea why, other than it felt SO unfair and I was already having a rough day. He just got back, and now he’s gone :(. He’s had surgery for it already, with the same doctor that did Lance Stroll’s wrist surgery, and he should be back by Qatar. It’s all good.
Just a very unfortunately circumstance all around. Wishing him a speedy recovery!
(Somehow he looks better here post-surgery than he did any post-race interview last season, so there’s that at least!)
Liam Lawson made his F1 race debut!!!!!! But AlphaTauri… oof
However, something good did come from Daniel’s injury: LIAM LAWSON GOT HIS F1 DEBUT!! And guys—he did so well.
He only had a free practice to get used to the car before qualifying, so it wasn’t surprising when he went out in Q1. Then, with almost no experience, he had to race in a GP that went from slicks to inters to slicks to full wets to slicks. Sure, he had some trouble (and a 10s penalty) to start with, but he made it every lap of the race and finished P13. So good.
AlphaTauri were… less good. They forced Yuki to drive 50 laps softs, dropping him out of the points despite a strong performance, and the rest of their strategy was equal to worse. Then, after the race, Yuki was given what I (and many, many others) consider an insanely stupid and uncalled for penalty for “causing a collision.” I mean he didn’t, George had plenty of room, but the FIA will be the FIA. And F1 and Brits… ah I won’t say.
Mclaren makes terrible strategy calls in the rain (…what else is new)
Not too much to say here, other than that Mclaren apparent cannot handle strategy during the rain. For the first wave of rain, they tried to have Oscar and Lando stick it out on slicks—only to quickly realize that was a terrible idea when people on inters started lapping around 7s faster at times.
With Mclaren having fumbled their way to the bottom of the pile, the rest of the race was damage control. You might think with so many changing conditions and red flags there would be a chance for Mclaren to get back where they started—but you’d be wrong, because changing conditions confuse Mclaren’s strategy department
Ultimately Lando and Oscar ended up P7 and P6, a far cry from Lando starting on the front row. Please, can someone at Mclaren figure out how to strategize for a front row start in wet conditions? Anyone?
Is anyone surprised it was another Ferrari disaster-class?
I was already worried for Ferrari this weekend when Charles went off at turn 1 like, seven times in the free practices. And I was even more worried when he crashed during Q3.
But I held out hope… only for that to instantly be dashed when, after a downpour started right as the race started, Charles made a late call to come into the pits for inters and, of course, Ferrari didn’t have his inters ready. This 13 second pit stop was then compounded by front wing and floor damage for Charles, who then retired later on in the race.
Carlos had a solid race after a terrible two weeks of PR, ending up where he started at P5. But it’s never great to hear a driver end the weekend saying, “…the fight for the podium was a bit circumstantial, because in terms of pace, they were very far from us. I’m happy to have fought with people who were very faster than us.”
There’s so much to say and so little I want to say. The championship battle didn’t move at all this weekend—because so many frontrunners either didn’t finish the feature race or finished out of the points.
Both Prema drivers were knocked out of the feature race. Ollie was at least taken out by another driver (Victor Martins count your days…) but Fred had both wheels pop off ON TRACK after Prema attempted a double-stack. Unbelievable.
Good news for Clem Novalak though, who is… not good, to put it lightly. He won his first feature race!!
In the sprint there was also a wild crash, with the two Campos Racing cars ending up on top of one another. Everyone was okay, thank god. Isack Hadjar pulled his no good very bad season back a bit with a win in the sprint.
These stats show who pitted too late. The 2023 Dutch GP broke the record for most overtakes in an F1 race with 186 overtakes. Liam might be driving the AlphaTauri until Singapore. Despite use this weekend wet tires are still useless, says George Russell. The Dutch love their bikes. This genius was hugging the tire blankets to keep warm. The Dutch King, Willem-Alexander, has a bit of a man crush on Max. Speaking of Max, he hasn’t lost a race since this celebration in Miami. And finally, Max joins Mclaren’s PR team.
Love the F2 review! Both tires popping off had me going crazy. Lovely stuff as usual!