@Max33Verstappen cruises to dominant #DutchGP victory on home soil. #F1

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen drove a flawless race to claim the Dutch GP victory on home soil at Zandvoort ahead of title-rival Lewis Hamilton to re-capture the Driver’s Championship lead.

 

 

The only threat to thwart the Red Bull driver’s win arrived after his first pit-stop when he emerged behind Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, but the Finn was soon overtaken with DRS assistance.

 

As Hamilton ran an alternate strategy, which put him on the quicker C2 yellow-marked medium compounds but for a longer stint, Verstappen held a comfortable 2.5 second gap over his championship rival, before a late Hamilton stop ensured Verstappen secured the eventual Dutch GP victory by 20.932 seconds.

 

When the 72 lap Dutch GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen got a solid launch off the line to pull nicely in-front of Hamilton, who was not close enough to produce a strong threat into Tarzan corner to pass.

 

This allowed Verstappen to move well clear of the chasing Mercedes duo, with Bottas noticeably slower than his team-mate.

 

Verstappen increased to a 1.7 advantage at the end of the opening tour, which he extended to 2.3 seconds the following lap.

 

Also, at the beginning of proceedings, Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso soon relegated team-mate Esteban Ocon. Although the Frenchman enjoyed holding the inside line into Tarzan corner, the pairing squeezed through the next kink before Alonso dashed around the outside of the third corner on the high-line to take seventh place.

 

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi was also overtaken by the double world champion, having to lift his Ferrari-powered C41 racer when he was muzzled onto the grass by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz before nudging the rear of Alonso, whose A521 entry was on settled over the bumps on the rundown to turn six.

 

It was a procession then onwards, as Verstappen’s lead reached 3.2 seconds on the eighth tour before Hamilton went onto a two-stop strategy and began pushing his C3 side-walled softer tyres.

 

The seven-time world champion was initially 0.4 seconds quicker in his F1 W12 EQ Performance racer to cut the gap down to 2.8 seconds, but it then stabilised at 2.9 seconds as Verstappen was ordered to respond to Hamilton’s charge.

 

Hamilton stopped on the 21^st lap, swapping the softs for mediums, but was delayed with a slower change to his front-right and emerged in third place behind team-mate Bottas.

 

Red Bull reacted to Mercedes and pitted Verstappen a lap later, also putting on the medium rubber, but a solid stop gained the Dutchman a valuable second and rejoined with a ten second deficit to now-race leader Bottas.

 

Hamilton took the fastest lap as the title-rivals closed down Bottas, with the Finn struggling on his softs, but with the potential to try and thwart Verstappen with the instruction to “defend the race win”.

 

The Red Bull driver closed to Bottas’ rear on lap 30, and when the latter ran wide at the turn 11, Verstappen could close and capitalise with DRS assistance for the lead on the main-straight.

 

Bottas moved immediately to the inside at the second corner to give Hamilton second place, with the reigning world champion 1.5 seconds off Verstappen.

 

Mercedes brought Bottas in on lap 32, for a set of medium tyres before he was held by a second at the third corner when he had to squeeze between the wall and the spin from the lapped Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel.

 

Hamilton made his next stop on lap 40, putting on another set of scrub mediums, emerging 2.3 seconds behind his Mercedes team-mate before Verstappen again pitted a tour later.

 

Red Bull changed his strategy, putting the Dutchman on a fresh set of the C1 white-branded harder compounds, and returned to the track 2.9 seconds in-front of Hamilton.

 

From there Hamilton complained over the radio about his tyres and called to put early, whilst Verstappen established a solid three second gap.

 

Bottas was delayed further by a slow five second precautionary stop with five laps remaining in response to a vibration. However, it gave the Finn an opportunity to take the bonus fastest lap point.

 

Bottas clinched it by eight tenths, which then forced team-mate Hamilton to pit on the second-to-last tour for a late charge on softs to capture the bonus point.

 

This secured Verstappen’s Dutch GP victory, his seventh win of the season by 20.932 seconds over Hamilton as the Red Bull driver reclaimed the Driver’s Championship lead.

 

Hamilton was able to grab the fastest lap bonus point, taking back the title posting a late 1:11.097, which was a second quicker than Bottas’ previous benchmark.

 

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly drove a quiet race to fourth, after Bottas completed the top three, whilst Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc came home fifth in his 50^th Grand Prix for the Scuderia.

 

Alonso managed to escape team orders from his Alpine team that could have called the Spaniard to let Ocon by, despite the protests from the Frenchman, as the two-time world champion made a late pass on fellow Spaniard Sainz to take sixth place.

 

Perez, who started from the pit-lane after installing his fourth power-train of the season, finished eighth with a late overtake on McLaren’s Lando Norris into Tarzan corner (turn one).

 

Perez’s race was a short fuse after the Mexican suffered a vibration on his harder compounds to force an early stop to the mediums, but the Red Bull driver was able to use the undercut to his advantage before passing McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo to setup the late fight with Norris.

 

Ocon eventually dropped to ninth place in-front of the McLarens, whilst Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll started where he finished in 12^th place and ahead of team-mate Vettel who recovered from his early spin to wound up 13^th.

 

A puncture dropped Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi from seventh to 14^th place in-front of substitute team-mate Robert Kubica.

 

Behind Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi in 16^th place, team-mate George Russell suffered a late retirement to join AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda (loss of power) and Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin (hydraulics) in their respective garages.

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2021 Dutch GP – The Top Three

 

 

Dutch GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“As you can hear already, it’s just incredible. Expectations were high going into the weekend, I’m so happy to win here. It’s such an amazing day, the whole crowd, incredible.”

 

2^nd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“What a day, what a crowd! Max did a great job, congratulations to him. I gave it everything, they were just too quick for us. They had that upper edge, and it’s very hard to follow here. The last lap was one of the best parts of the race for me – single lap, low fuel. This is now one of my favourite tracks.”

 

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“For me, pretty uneventful. We tried a one-stop, but at the end stopped for safety basically. As a team we got a lot of points.”

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Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2021 Race Results Classification (72 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING HONDA	72	1:30:05.395	25
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	72	+20.932s	19
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	72	+56.460s	15
4	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI HONDA	71	+1 lap	12
5	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	71	+1 lap	10
6	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	71	+1 lap	8
7	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	71	+1 lap	6
8	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING HONDA	71	+1 lap	4
9	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	71	+1 lap	2
10	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	71	+1 lap	1
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	71	+1 lap	0
12	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	70	+2 laps	0
13	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES	70	+2 laps	0
14	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	70	+2 laps	0
15	88	Robert Kubica	ALFA ROMEO RACING FERRARI	70	+2 laps	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	70	+2 laps	0
17	63	George Russell	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	69	DNF	0
18	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	69	+3 laps	0
NC	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI HONDA	48	DNF	0
NC	9	Nikita Mazepin	HAAS FERRARI	41	DNF	0

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1075/netherlands.html

 

Click here for the full 2021 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings

 

Round 13 of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous and historic Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Monza, Italy for the Formula 1 Heineken Gran Premio D’Italia 2021 from September 10-12.

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#DutchGP Qualifying: @Max33Verstappen clinches home pole position. #F1

#DutchGP FP2: @CharlesLeclerc heads @ScuderiaFerrari one-two. #F1

#DutchGP FP1: @LewisHamilton quickest ahead of @Max33Verstappen. #F1

#Formula1 @Heineken #DutchGP 2021 Preview. #F1 #DutchGrandPrix