#F1 @Heineken #DutchGP 2022 Preview.
Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2021 Race Start. Circuit Zandvoort, Zandvoort, Netherlands. Image credit to Remko De Waal/ ANP Sport via Getty Images. 2022 Dutch GP Preview, Dutch Grand Prix Preview, Dutch GP Preview, F1 Dutch GP Preview.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – After Max Verstappen recovered from 13th on the grid to claim victory at the Belgian Grand Prix to extend his championship lead to 93 points, round 16 of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous Circuit Zandvoort in Zandvoort, North Holland, Netherlands this weekend for the Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2022. This will be the 32nd time that Circuit Zandvoort will host the Dutch Grand Prix. This is the second event of a European triple-header alongside the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – A look at the Circuit Zandvoort
Circuit Zandvoort is a permanent motor racing facility located in the dunes north of Zandvoort, Netherlands near the North Sea coast-line. There were minor races on a street circuit in the town in the 1930’s, but the German invasion of the Netherlands proved to be a whisker of luck for the locals. In a bid to stop his townspeople from being sent to Germany to work, legend says the Mayor of Zandvoort influenced the Germans to allow them to create a straight road through the dunes down, which the Germans could hold celebratory parades once they achieved victory. This was also later linked to other roads, which were used to get to coastal defence positions.
After the war, some of these roads were widened and joined together and a racing circuit was made, not as legend says by John Hugenholtz, but by a group of officials from the Royal Dutch Motorcycle Association, with input from Bentley Boy Sammy Davis, who won the 1927 24 Heures Du Mans. The first event was in 1948, named the Zandvoort Grand Prix. The race by Thailand’s Prince Bira in a Maserati. The next two events were won by Louis Rosier in the year’s 1950 and 1951. 1952 was the year the Dutch Grand Prix became part of the third Formula 1 World Championship season; this and the next year’s Grands Prix were won by Ferrari’s Alberto Ascari. The 1954 event was not held due to a lack of money, and 1955 saw once more Mercedes-Benz ‘s dominance, with legend’s Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss flying; Moss followed Fangio closely all the way to the finish. The 1956 and 1957 Grands Prix were also cancelled due to a lack of money, which indirectly was caused by the Suez Crisis of 1956–1957. The 1958 Dutch Grand Prix was won by Vanwall’s Moss. 1959’s event saw Jo Bonnier win his only Grand Prix and in 1960 saw Dan Gurney suffer an accident and a spectator was killed; the race was won by the legendary Jack Brabham in his Cooper.
The Dutch Grands Prix from 1963 to 1965 saw Jim Clark score a hattrick of victories, and 1967 saw the rise of the famous Lotus 49 featuring its brand-new Ford-Cosworth DFV engine. The DFV won on its debut with Clark behind the wheel; this naturally aspirated V8 engine became the most successful and widely used engine amongst the privateer outfits until the 1985 season. The 1970 Championship season, however, saw the 49’s successor, the 72 (with its design just as advanced as the 49 was three years earlier) dominate comprehensively with Jochen Rindt piloting.
Tragedy hit, when Piers Courage, behind the wheel of a Frank Williams entry, crashed heavily near the high-speed Tunnel Oost corner after a wheel came off and hit the Briton on the head, which killed him. The car, with Courage still inside it, then caught fire and burned to the ground. The 1971 Grand Prix saw Jacky Ickx clinch the victory in a Ferrari after an intense fight with Mexican Pedro Rodriguez in a BRM in torrential wet conditions. There was no event in 1972. It was at first on that season’s calendar, but the drivers rejected racing at Zandvoort, due to the facilities and circuit conditions being out-of-date with Grand Prix racing during that period.
Zandvoort was extensively modified during its absence from the Formula One World Championship calendar. It was lined with Armco barriers and cars were protected from the track-side obstacles and sand dunes. A new pit was built, and the track also saw a chicane placed just before Bosuit, the quick high-speed corner that went onto the pit-straight. For the 1973 event, in a celebration of the efforts made, there was a great atmosphere that weekend and everyone was ecstatic, especially the organisers. But in a cruel twist, that Grand Prix was to be yet another bad hit on Zandvoort’s history and reputation. In an event that was said to be one of the most well-organised Grands Prix, it was actually disorganised, and a lack of clear communication would be responsible for what was to come.
On the eighth lap of the Grand Prix, Roger Williamson (competing in his second race) suffered a heavy crash near Tunnel Oost and his car, whilst scraping along the tarmac caught fire. Williamson was thankfully uninjured during the crash, but time was running out and he could not break free from the car. Williamson’s fellow countryman David Purley parked it alongside, crossed the circuit and sprinted over to the burning March. Purley attempted to turn the car upright. There appeared to be some time to right the car and get Williamson out, but as hard as Purley tried, he was unable to do it all by himself, and the marshals, who were not wearing flame-retardant overalls, were unable and not willing to help because of the intense heat. Race control assumed that Purley’s car that had crashed and that the Briton escaped unscathed. The majority of drivers who saw Purley waving at them to stop assumed that he was trying to put out a fire from his own car, having safely gotten out of it, and did not know a second driver was involved. As a result, the Grand Prix continued, whilst Purley tried hard to save Williamson’s life. Due to race officials standing around doing nothing to help and hinder the situation (by throwing away the fire extinguisher that Purely was using over the Armco barriers and down the slope) this did not work as Williamson’s car burned, and Williamson succumbed due to asphyxiation. Purley was later given the George Medal for his actions in trying to save Williamson’s life. The event was won by Tyrrell driver Jackie Stewart (who broke fellow Scot Jim Clark’s record for the most career victories that weekend) and his French teammate Francois Cevert came home in 2nd place, but no one celebrated; it was one of the darkest moments in the history of Formula One.
The 1974 Grand Prix saw the re-emergence of Ferrari dominate with legend Niki Lauda scoring the victory; and 1975 saw James Hunt claim his maiden Formula One race win for Hesketh. 1976 saw Hunt win once more whilst Lauda was recovering from his horrific crash at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The 1977 even was remembered for an incident between Hunt and Mario Andretti. Andretti attempted to pass Hunt at the famous Tarzan corner; the two cars tangled, and both were forced to retire from the race. Andretti won the 1978 event, his last Grand Prix victory. 1979 saw a track change to slow cars going into Tunnel Oost, there was a fast temporary chicane put in place there. Canadian Gilles Villeneuve crashed there, whilst fighting aggressively with Alan Jones and suffered left-rear suspension damage. But the Ferrari continued; but on the following tour, he once again went off again at Tarzan corner. Refusing to wave the white flag, Villeneuve, shocked many, put the Ferrari into reverse gear and piloted his 312t4 racer out of the run-off area full of mud and back onto the track. At halfway distance, the 312t4’s left rear rim and wheel along with the suspension shattered and was being dragged by the car as it continued on, which made the Ferrari almost impossible to drive. Villeneuve, displaying his now famous car control, made his way back to the pits without crashing or going off the circuit and retired from the Grand Prix, with Jones taking the victory. The 1980 race saw the chicane removed and swapped with a slower chicane before the Tunnel Oost. 1981’s Grand Prix saw an intense battle between Alain Prost driving a Renault and Jones in his Williams, with Prost coming out as the winner. The 1982 Grand Prix was won by Ferrari’s Didier Pironi, his fellow French-compatriot Rene Arnoux suffered a horrific crash at the end of the main-straight going into Tarzan corner; with his ground-effect Renault’s front suspension failing and the Frenchman went head-first into the barriers, thankfully he was okay. The 1983 race saw a battle between title rivals Prost and Nelson Piquet. Prost tried to overtake Piquet at Tarzan, but the Frenchman hit Piquet off, and Prost crashed afterwards. The 1985 event saw Lauda take his 25th and final Grand Prix victory whilst fending off his fast-charging McLaren team-mate Prost near the end of proceedings.
1985 was the Dutch Grand Prix’s final running, as the company that ran the Zandvoort circuit (CENAV) went out of business, marking the end of the iconic old Zandvoort track. The track, owned by the Zandvoort municipality, was not used for some time and part of the grounds and half of the circuit was sold to Vendorado in 1987, a bungalow park developer during that time. The circuit was eventually re-designed and is still used for other motorsport categories.
Before in 2019, the announcement came that Formula 1 would return to Zandvoort in 2020, after a 35-year hiatus from the sport. The coronavirus plague made it 36 years and a 2021 date for its event.
The Circuit Zandvoort was modernised in time for Formula One’s return – including increasing its banking angle at the iconic Tarzan corner to an Indianapolis Motor Speedway style trumping it 18 degrees with the circuit being undulating and rollercoaster like.
Max Verstappen won his home Grand Prix at Zandvoort on it’s return to the calendar last season.
The current Grand Prix circuit layout is 4.296 kilometres (2.646 miles) in length and runs in a clockwise direction.
Race distance is 306.648 kilometres (190.542 miles) in length with 72 laps in total and 14 corners.
Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton holds the fastest lap record at the Circuit Zandvoort set at last year’s event with a 1:11.097 in his Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 W12 E Performance racer.
Jim Clark holds the record for most Dutch Grand Prix victories with four to his name.
Scuderia Ferrari is the most successful constructor at the Dutch Grand Prix with nine victories.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – Onboard Pole Position Lap of the Circuit Zandvoort
Here is the onboard pole position lap from last year’s event set by home-favourite Max Verstappen in his Red Bull Racing-Honda RB16B. The reigning world champion’s effort was a solid 1:08.885. You can watch the onboard right here at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtTHFMo63k8
2022 Dutch GP Preview – The Last Five Winners
2021: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing. 1986-2020: Not Held. 1985: Niki Lauda, McLaren-TAG. 1984: Alain Prost, McLaren-TAG. 1983: Rene Arnoux, Scuderia Ferrari. 1982: Didier Pironi, Scuderia Ferrari.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – Tyres
Pirelli will be bringing with them to the Circuit Zandvoort, the white-branded C1 Hard compounds, the yellow-marked C2 Mediums and the red side-walled C3 Soft rubber along with the green-marked Intermediates and blue-banded Full Wet compounds in-case of rain.
All drivers will have eight sets of the C3 red side-walled Softs, three sets of the yellow C2 Mediums and two sets of the white C1 Hard rubber.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – DRS Zones
There will be two DRS zones at Circuit Zandvoort with the first detection point just before turn ten with the first activation zone at the exit of turn ten. The second detection point is just before the penultimate corner turn 13 with the second activation zone at the exit of the final corner turn 14.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – Pitlane Speed Limits
Pitlane speed limits will be 80km/h during practice, qualifying and the race.
ICYMI: – Verstappen recovers from 13th on grid to take dominant Belgian GP victory
Max Verstappen lead home team-mate Sergio Perez to a Red Bull one-two victory at the Belgian GP to extend his championship lead to 93 points. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz completed the top three.
The reigning world champion took control of events at the Circuit De Spa-Francorchamps, moving into first place on the 12th tour before flying to a 17.841 second win.
With the Red Bull RB18 having solid straight-line speed to allow Perez to fly past pole-sitter Sainz on the Kemmel Straight, the Mexican came home second.
Meanwhile, Sainz rounded out the top three ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell as Sir Lewis Hamilton retired on the opening lap after a first lap crash with former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.
Despite topping the qualifying session by 0.632 over Sainz, Verstappen was dropped down the order due to exceeding power-unit component limits – but an electrical glitch on the grid for Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly promoted the Dutchman to start 13th, one spot over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
That looked to leave it up to second-placed starter Perez to take the fight to Sainz, but he got a slow launch to drop to fifth into Les Combes behind both Mercedes and Alonso.
With the medium tyre-starting RB18 falling down, soft-starting Sainz was given an easy run to La Source to hold first place ahead of the Alpine as Hamilton went into the slipstream of Alonso on the climb up the hill.
But the duo tangled into Les Combes, Alonso appeared to be fully over the inside kerb, but was squeezed by the F1 W13 entry as Hamilton’s right-rear tyre clunked the Spaniard’s front-left tyre.
This launched the Silver Arrows’ back axle into the air and although the Briton initially re-joined, he was very slow and quickly peeled off due to a loss of water pressure.
The yellow flags became a safety car after Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas collided at the exit of the chicane, with the C42 ending up in the gravel trap.
As 15th-starting Alpine of Esteban Ocon messed up the corner to run over the inside sausage kerb, the A522 racer looked to put Latifi off-line as he ran wide and dipped into the gravel to send the Williams into a spin.
Bottas was innocently caught out and turned around to retire. However, both this and the Alonso-Hamilton tangle passed without any penalties handed out following their respective investigations.
However, Hamilton was given a reprimand for not visiting the medical centre despite his crash exceeding the maximum impact limit.
Sainz lost his initial 2.1 second gap over Perez to the safety car as Russell went into third place in-front of Alonso and a flying Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel, who came up from ninth.
Meanwhile Leclerc, was forced to pit at the end of the third tour after a visor tear-off lodged itself in the front-right brake duct causing overheating and reports of smoke.
He stopped from ninth, one position behind championship-rival Verstappen, for C3 yellow-marked mediums.
As the safety car came in on lap four, Sainz lead a very slow restart and locked-up at the Bus Stop Chicane, but a good exit kept him clear of Perez.
The Mexican locked up at La Source, forcing him to worry about Russell behind as Sainz moved to a 1.2 second gap.
Meanwhile, Verstappen overtook McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and used DRS to fly past Alonso for fourth place on the Kemmel Straight with 1.6 seconds to chase the Mercedes in-front. It only took until the eighth tour before Verstappen got by Russell to get into the final podium place.
The 2.6 gap to team-mate Perez was wiped out, but Verstappen was unable to get past, with the former not making it easy as he could have done into Les Combes.
But with an early fastest lap effort done, and after complaining about the “silly” amount of time lost, Verstappen closed and slipstreamed past the Mexican out of Eau Rouge.
With Ferrari stopping Sainz for a set of Pirelli C3 yellow side-walled medium compounds at the end of the 11th lap before losing time emerging behind Ricciardo, Verstappen’s initial move to first place was completed.
As Verstappen mastered running the more delicate softer tyres in warmer temperatures than experienced at any point over the race weekend, the Red Bull driver was more able to gain more life out of them than usual tyre whisperer in team-mate Perez on the mediums.
Although, Red Bull called in Perez at the end of the 14th tour for another set of the yellow-branded medium rubber whilst Verstappen remained out on track and continued to run the softs.
With Perez keeping Leclerc at bay as he emerged, the Red Bull squeezing the F1-75 on the outside into Les Combes to the point where both slightly touched.
Verstappen eventually made his way to pit on lap 15 as his traction levels deteriorated, as Red Bull swapped his softs for mediums to re-join in-front of team-mate Perez.
This left Sainz with a 4.7 second lead to protect, with the Ferrari’s rubber now four laps old. But Verstappen ate into the lead and on the 17th tour, he was on the F1-75’s rear.
P1 and the eventual victory would effectively be decided when Verstappen shot up Eau Rouge and used DRS to jump Sainz into Les Combes.
Three laps later, Perez was on Sainz’s tail and dummied Sainz on the Kemmel Straight to overtake the Ferrari around the outside for second place and a Red Bull one-two.
Sainz pitted again on lap 25, swapping to the harder compounds as Leclerc was put on mediums. Verstappen made his final pit-stop on lap 30 also for mediums and emerged with an eight second lead over Perez.
Lapping consistently faster than his Red Bull team-mate, Verstappen was able to claim the Belgian GP victory with the fastest lap bonus point and ahead of team-mate Perez by 17.841 seconds and 93 points clear in the Driver’s Standings.
With Perez on the harder compound to cover Sainz, the Mexican reached the chequered flag nine seconds ahead of the Ferrari as Russell came home fourth 2.2 seconds behind the F1-75 entry.
Leclerc pitted on the penultimate tour for a set of softs to attempt to capture the fastest lap bonus point off Verstappen. But on cooler tyres, was released into the path of Alonso.
The Spaniard snatched fifth place from Leclerc, and whilst Leclerc took the position back on the final tour, he missed out on the bonus point and was slapped with a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit-lane and relegated back down to sixth.
Ocon crossed the line in seventh for Alpine, assisted by a double overtake on the Kemmel Straight as he picked up a powerful slip-stream from Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly.
Vettel lead the Frenchman as Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon rounded out the top ten.
For much of the second half of the Grand Prix, Albon kept a train of cars at bay – the queue led by Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll who was 11th, followed by McLaren’s Lando Norris who was 12th, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda in 13th, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu 14th and Ricciardo 15th.
Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen lead team-mate Mick Schumacher for 16th and 17th respectively as Latifi brought up the rear in 18th.
2022 Dutch GP Preview – The Situation
Max Verstappen heads to his home race at Zandvoort sitting on top of the World Driver’s Championship with 284 points and a 93-point advantage over Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez who is second on 191 points while Charles Leclerc is a further 98 points behind the Dutchman in third on 186 points.
Verstappen continues his stunning form with his ninth victory in 14 races this campaign as Formula One returned from it’s traditional summer-break at the Belgian GP.
The Dutchman will now race at his home Grand Prix as world champion for the first time, with droves of his fans dressed in orange expected to meet the Red Bull driver at Zandvoort.
Ferrari will be looking to bounce back from a duff weekend at Spa, with Leclerc attempting to cut Verstappen’s 98-points lead over him in the driver’s standings.
Seven-time World Champion Sir Lewis Hamilton will also arrive to Holland with a point to prove, following his opening lap tangle with former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso – that the Briton later accepted responsibility for – saw him retire for the first time this campaign.
Oracle Red Bull Racing comes to the Netherlands on top of the Constructors Championship with 475 points and a 118-point lead over nearest rivals Scuderia Ferrari who are second on 357 points whilst Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team are a further 159 points behind the Milton Keynes based-squad in third place on 316 points.
The Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2022 weekend begins Friday September 2 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday September 3 and the 72 lap Race Sunday September 4.
