Thrilling home win is 7th of the season for Max Verstappen

By Malhaar Khaladkar

Max Verstappen took home victory at the first Dutch Grand Prix held at Zandvoort in 36 years as title rival Lewis Hamilton finished second and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas completed the podium in P3.

New Delhi, 7 September 2021: Home favorite Max Verstappen took his 7^th victory of the season as Lewis Hamilton finished P2, unable to challenge for victory but taking the fastest lap as a consolation. Valtteri Bottas took his seventh podium of the season achieving P3. Pierre Gasly maintained his qualifying position by finishing P4 in race. Fernando Alonso finished in P6 sandwiched by the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc in P5 and Carlos Sainz in P7. Sergio Perez managed to finish P8 after a dismal qualifying, second Alpine of Esteban Ocon crossed the line in P9 and Lando Norris rounded out the top 10.

McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo missed out on points, finishing P11 ahead of Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel in P12 and P13 respectively. Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi was unable to convert his high qualifying position into points as he finished P14, one position ahead of stand in teammate Robert Kubica replacing Kimi Raikkonen due to the Finn being in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19. Nicholas Latifi was classified P16 and teammate George Russel though classified in P17, DNF’d with two laps to go. Mick Schumacher of Haas was the last finisher in P18. AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and second Haas of Nikita Mazepin did not finish the race.

The title protagonists started from the front row with the Dutchman on pole. Both got an equal start as the race got underway and Hamilton settled himself behind Verstappen with the gap hovering around 3s. Bottas maintained his position in P3. Meanwhile, Gasly too maintained P4 ahead of both the Ferrari cars, although the three of them lost touch to the top three cars.

Hamilton was the first car to pit of the top 10 runners to undercut Verstappen. It wasn’t the smoothest pitstop from the world champions as Verstappen pitted a lap later and emerged just less than 2s ahead. Both pitting for the medium tyres. Bottas in the lead was kept out in a bid to try and hold up Verstappen and let Hamilton closeupbehind. Both caught Bottas by lap 30 who yet to make a stop. Bottas was able to hold up Verstappen for only one lap as the dutchman made use of fresh tyres and passed the Finn. Bottas let past his teammate a corner later.

In the midfield Gasly pitted on lap 24, whilst everyone else pitted lap 30 onwards either for the medium or the hard tyres. The running order midway was Verstappen and Hamilton, who were a pitstop ahead of the rest of the field. After Bottas came Gasly, Leclerc, Sainz, Norris, Perez- who had recovered till P8 now but was yet to make another pitstop, Alonso and Ocon.

With Hamilton hovering around 3s behind Verstappen, Mercedes brought him in for a second stop on another set of mediums. Verstappen followed suit a lap later albeit on the hard tyres as Red Bull did not have a set of medium tyres left. Hamilton was unable to close in the gap as he encountered traffic and remained 3-4s behind his Dutch rival.

Ultimately Hamilton was unable to fight for victory as he pitted for soft tyres with just two laps to go and set the lap record around Zandvoort. Verstappen cruised home to victory in front of his loyal supporters- the orange army as they are called, with Bottas in 3^rd. Alonso fought back from P9 to P6, overtaking fellow countryman Sainz at a track where it was difficult to overtake while Perez completed his comeback from pitlane to P8.

Red Bull had a faster car and Verstappen extracted full performance out of it. They lost out in the constructor’s championship to Mercedes due to Perez being unable to advance to Q2 even. Mercedes were close behind in second as they lost out to pole position by just 0.03s to Verstappen. Mercedes and Hamilton put it down to missing FP2- due to an engine problem, as they were unable to optimise their car. Also, Mercedes struggled on the banked T3 corner as the W12 lost two-tenths there compared to the RB16B.

AlphaTauri showed great pace and were best of the rest in the hands of Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman was able to maintain his qualifying position in the race with no real challenge from the Ferrari’s as he finished in P4. Tsunoda struggled with pace the entire weekend as he barely made it to Q2 and was outqualified by Williams cars. Ferrari showed decent performance but expected better results as this was a track that suited their car with higher downforce characteristics. Sainz particularly was disappointed as he felt ‘slow’ in his own words, as he was overtaken by his childhood hero Alonso. Alpine showed decent race pace but lacked qualifying pace to challenge for higher positions. With all the cars so close it was difficult for the French cars to make progress, still Alonso maximizing the result in P6.

McLaren had an uncharacteristically dismal weekend, with both drivers calling it ‘abnormal’. They lacked the pace in qualifying as Norris was unable to make Q3 for the first time this season and Ricciardo could only manage P10. In the race they managed just a solitary point in P10, courtesy of Norris as they were unable to challenge the cars ahead of them. Aston Martin were in a no man’s land position as they were faster than the cars behind them, but traffic and superior pace of cars ahead prevented them from getting points. It was not helped by the fact that Vettel spun in the second half of the race dropping him out of contention for points.

Alfa Romeo showed impressive qualifying performance as Giovinazzi made it to Q3 and qualified P7. The Swiss based Italian team lacked race pace as well as a puncture prevented Giovinazzi from achieving points finish.Williams’ on paper result looks worse than it actually was with both drivers showing impressive qualifying performance but losing it in the barrier in Q2. The FW43B is a wind sensitive car, compounded with overdriving it meant they were unable to enter Q3 with Russell or Latifi. Russell showed impressive race pace as he maintained P11-P12 through the whole race before retiring on lap 70. Haas’ season story remains the same as Nikita Mazepin failed to finish while Mick Schumacher finished last, 3 laps down from the leader.

Saturday Qualifying results were:

Note – Latifi penalised five grid places for an unscheduled gearbox change; required to start from the pit lane, as car modified whilst under Parc Ferme conditions. Perez demoted to the back of the grid for use of additional power unit elements; required to start from the pit lane, as car modified whilst under Parc Ferme conditions.