Verstappen wins Dutch GP and reclaims championship lead from Hamilton

2021 Dutch Grand Prix summary

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Max Verstappen retook the lead in the drivers championship in front of his home fans by winning the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

Verstappen won an uneventful race ahead of rival Lewis Hamilton to move ahead of the Mercedes driver into the lead of the championship.

Valtteri Bottas finished third, with Pierre Gasly taking fourth place ahead of the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Fernando Alonso. Verstappen lapped every driver up to Bottas in third.

At the start, Verstappen sprinted clear to take the lead on the opening lap, ahead of Hamilton, Bottas and Gasly. The two Alpine drivers of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso made minor contact on the run to Gerlachbocht, while Antonio Giovinazzi dropped down to tenth place from his seventh place grid slot.

Having started from the pitlane, Sergio Perez locked up his front tyres heavily while trying to pass Nikita Mazepin into Tarzan. The resulting flat spot on the Red Bull’s hard tyres was so severe, Perez was brought into the pits to change onto medium tyres, compromising his weekend further.

Verstappen pulled a gap of just over three seconds to Hamilton as the top three disappeared from Gasly in fourth. Hamilton was brought in for an early first stop at the end of lap 20 to move onto the medium tyres. Red Bull reacted by pulling Verstappen in the very next lap, switching him onto the medium tyres and rejoining two seconds ahead of Hamilton.

Bottas inherited the lead but remained out on his used soft tyres for several more laps. With fresher tyres, Verstappen reeled in the Mercedes ahead, eventually slipstreaming easily back into the lead along the pit straight at the end of lap 30. Bottas immediately pitted the following lap to move onto the mediums tyres, rejoining in third.

Sebastian Vettel spun at Hugenholtz while trying to pass Robert Kubica for 14th, forcing Valtteri Bottas to take avoiding action. Vettel was able to continue and

Hamilton was pitted for a second time at the end of lap 39, moving onto a second set of mediums. Red Bull immediately reacted, bringing the race leader in at the end of lap 40. Verstappen was switched onto the hard compound tyre and released, comfortably ahead of his rival in the lead of the race.

Nikita Mazepin was called in to retire with a suspectedhydraulic issue on his Haas. Yuki Tsunoda also retired his AlphaTauri after reporting a loss of power, the team calling him into the pit lane for an early end to his afternoon.

With Hamilton on mediums, the question became whether or not the Mercedes driver’s tyres would last to the end of the race. Verstappen’s advantage sat at around three seconds up to the closing laps of the race.

Bottas was brought in with three laps remaining and told he was being brought in to create a gap for Hamilton ahead to pit to attempt to get the fastest lap. Bottas set the fastest first and second sector of the race and was told by James Alison to “abort the fastest lap”.

Bottas appeared to ignore the instruction and duly set the fastest lap of the race. That left Hamilton with just a single lap to be able to claim the bonus point for fastest lap himself, which he was able to do comfortably.

Verstappen cruised around to claim an extremely popular home victory and take the lead of the drivers championship. Hamilton took the fastest lap and second place, ahead of Bottas.

Gasly finished fourth, ahead of Leclerc and Alonso, who passed compatriot Sainz in the closing laps. Sergio Perez eventually finished in eighth place, ahead of Ocon and Norris rounding out the top ten.

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2021 Dutch Grand Prix reaction

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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112 comments on “Verstappen wins Dutch GP and reclaims championship lead from Hamilton”

  1. Probably the last race he’ll be in the lead of the championship. But you can’t take this away from him.

    1. Bookies don’t agree with you but I see that too.
      Merc car so comfortable on mediums , particularly as car becomes lighter.
      We didn’t see full potential. Russia and Monza are Merc tracks.

      And then the engine penalty coming up…

      1. Possible. But…
        The merc engine is on the max of it performance and they too will have to use an extra engine.

        BTW, the real winners are the fans. And the most fair public.
        Let’s hope the boo story’s are done now.

      2. The bias is incredible here – verstappen could’ve won 6 in a row if it wasn’t for crashes that weren’t his fault but people claim Hamilton is the favourite?

        LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

    2. AJ (@asleepatthewheel)
      5th September 2021, 16:06

      I doubt. Red Bull is a tad faster and the Honda PU is at par with the Merc, if not ahead. It’ll ebb and flow between them but it is Max’s championship to lose this year. Constructor’s is still up for grabs depending on how much motivation Bottas can conjure.

      1. @trib4udi @asleepatthewheel I expect Merc to win Monza and Sochi and then for Interlagos and Mexico, maybe even Austin to be cancelled. Tell me then how this ends up a RB latter part of the season.

        1. Love this logic. I present to you some possibility I dreamed up where Mercedes wins, now please explain how RBR is to win if all I said becomes true :)

    3. Absolute borefest of a track little or no overtaking no better than monaco

    4. @hahostolze Yeah Mercedes going from having to use a barn door rear wing to get by, to consistently have 5-6 kph top speed advantage and still be on the pace without significant tyre drop is ominous. Add to that a Perez who is still absent, but a Bottas who is consistently present, and it will be difficult.

    5. So tight it’s tough to call for me. Mexico will suit red bull. I think they’ll be good at Sochi with the smooth surface too, and Brazil. Ham is great at Monza and Austin but so is max. Just where to take their engine penalty. Think Max is just about the favourite all things being considered. I think the lack of faith from his fans is (understandably) that Merc have been so formidable for so long, but the last formidable team was Red Bull remember and this ain’t no ordinary season with the new regs on the horizon…

      1. The problem is that if Mexico and Brazil get cancelled due to Covid, and with Singapore and Japan already being cancelled, the remaining tracks look to be mostly in favor of Mercedes:

        Italy: Merc
        Russia: Merc
        Turkey: Merc
        USA: Merc (although closer than the others)
        Saudi Arabia: Looks like a Merc track, but who knows
        Abu Dhabi: Merc

        Max is really missing significant points from Baku, Britain, Hungary (if not wins, then podiums at minimum), and it is very possible those races will cost him the championship in the end. But maybe it will turn out entirely differently when all is said and done, who knows and that’s why it’s an epic season so far imho

  2. I think Mercedes lost this race in the pit stops. They could have put more pressure on Red Bull by doing a faster first pit stop because the undercut was quite powerful. Well done to Max, and thank goodness it was not that of a boring race. However, if Perez qualified 4th, I think we would have had a procession because we would not have strategy variations. The race was only intense because of the strategy variations among the top 3.

    1. I don’t think Bottas played any part today really, he didn’t really hold up Max nor was he able to build a gap over Max with fresh tires over 11 laps he had. He was just too poor today and I think Perez would have been at around the same usefullness.

      1. @ivan-vinitskyy
        the gap between verst and ham went from 4 sec to 0.8 after they cleared bottas (who superbly let hamilton through just after being overtaken by verst). I think he played a decent role in aiding hamilton

        1. oh and he also pitted just to create space for hamilton to do FLap

          1. @Ipsom sarcasm noted

        2. That actually happened a few times as they were lapping backmarkers. But really you can’t really say Bottas did well because he let Lewis through… that’s bare minimum any team member would do.

      2. Yes, Merc lost ground by not really trying diff strategy.. this is their usual tactics to keep bottas to slow down opponents.
        Rather they should try to split it real two stopper by bringing VB first.. that may effect RB to reapond or in dilemma.
        Anyway they are assure p2 p3.. then why not to experiment.

    2. @krichelle They lost it when Red Bull got even more advantage after their engine upgrade in France. Mercedes hasn’t really been in contention for pole or a win since then.

      1. Ah, de engine upgrades fable again. Still believe in it I see

      2. @f1osaurus. Strange…. The quali for the Silverstone sprint was Mercedes (Hamilton) and Hungary was also Mercedes.

        1. @maddme, @esploratore1 Well Silverstone Verstappen should have had pole for Sprint yes. He just couldn’t get a lap together because things felt “weird” in his own words.

          But sure if you want then at Silverstone Hamilton was able to overcome the deficit his car has to Red Bull’s. Mostly because Verstappen wasn’t able to extract the maximum from his car though (by his own say so!), so yeah that as exactly my point to begin with.

          For Hungary Red Bull explained they totally messed up on setup. Even then still they were on par pace wise.

      3. How about hungary? Surely gaining 3-4 seconds per lap in any conditions on the opponents should’ve been enough to “be in contention” to win against a healthy red bull, and in fact even be favourite.

      4. Also this doesn’t really make sense, hamilton literally made poles (you know about silverstone sprint quali), so don’t see how they can not have been in contention for pole when they got them, this is trolling imo.

        1. Also this doesn’t really make sense, hamilton literally made poles (you know about silverstone sprint quali), so don’t see how they can not have been in contention for pole when they got them, this is not a serious comment imo.

    3. They lost possibly 1.6s in that stop and Hamilton was within that gap in that stint. That was the difference between making max make some bad choices in traffic and just hanging on. Also it’s not really a pit issue but bottas inability to stay in verstappens pit window was also crucial.

    4. I see it the same way.

    5. @krichelle How ironic it was Mercedes who seemed to suffer more with the new pit stop system.

      1. @balue How predictable that you think a single incident is relevant in analyzing something like this.

        In fact it was Red Bull that was clearly slower due to the loss of their automated (ie illegal) systems while Mercedes were just as fast as they were before.

        Instead of Red Bull being 3 tenths faster they were only 3 hundredths faster (2:15 vs 2:18 for Mercedes’ fastest stop)

        So yeah yet another Red Bull cheat has been terminated. Not that it matters much, but it’s good that the FIA are at least paying attention to stop them from cheating on just about everything as they have done for years.

    6. The Vettel spin, meant that Merc couldn’t keep Bottas in ver pit window in second stint, otherwise tgat would have been interesting. Merc have not been anywhere near RBs level on pit stops ever. They really should have looked into this because it is making a difference and costing them races

  3. I don’t think Bottas is too bothered about continuing the mystery on who is driving that car next year.

  4. Drivers getting lapped up to P4 was what I expected on this short circuit.
    Perez’s lock-up behind Mazepin, though.

    1. Perez’s lock-up behind Mazepin, though.

      And still voted DotD. weird!

      1. @jff

        DotD voters have the sophistication of a potato. They just vote for anyone who drives a recovery race.

        1. @aapje It’s still better than violating track limits and then have “Star of the weekend” award on Racefans with “He would have been 2nd if it wasn’t for the deleted time” as an argument in favor of someone.

          1. Performance is important in a driver of the day vote, norris was excellent that quali (and race).

  5. Called it yesterday. 20 second win and an absolute snooze of a “race” such a shame.

    1. I mean, that’s not the race any of us watched.

      1. Great event but the race? Not so much. Max fans wont care a jot and fair play to them. Cant agree that was anything other than a procession but the event, fans and track made it great to watch.

        1. @deanr The 20 seconds was not representative and is incredibly facetious for Tom above to reference. That’s my point. It was a procession but it was tight.

          1. So Verstappen didn’t win by 20 seconds? Maybe I did watch a different race. In all seriousness, Verstappen had much more pace available today. Every time Hamilton threw something at him he instantly pulled out an additional second.

            I watched a race without an overtake in the top 5 and minimal overtakes throughout the grid. Great for a Sunday nap, but not exciting I’m the slightest.

          2. Tom, no overtakes in top 5? Bottas?

    2. Wasn’t a proper twenty second win tho, the gap was only big because of late pitstops

  6. Is this a first?, according to this article Alonso driving two cars!

    1. No. Argentina 1955, Maurice Trintignant and Giuseppe Farina both finished in second place and third place ;)

      1. Ferrari and Alpine in the same race, still an impressive feat🤔

  7. That Bed Bull is a class from the rest. Mega car. Merc has no answer. Massive congrats to Max! What a mature, controlled drive. That’s how you drive a dominant car. Fully deserved. Best drivers end up in the fastest cars.

    Oh I forgot, that Red Bull is the 5th fastest car according to Perez lol

    1. Without pit stop Ham would have been only about 3.5sec behind, after 100min of racing. Its the same class as Mercs if you consider Max and Ham to be equally capable. We’ll never really know.

      1. To be fair it’s a bit of both. Max is driving so well but Rab are fully behind 1 car. Let’s take nothing away from Max though… hes really impressing me. The best we have seen since a young brit burst on to the scene in 2007.

        1. @deanr You think Perez isn’t perfroming well because RB team doesn’t support him enough?

          1. Clearly Max is on another level to Perez. Nobody can question that. I dont believe there is much more than a second between the very best drivers on the grid and the very worst. The equipment always has an effect and that’s true for Lewis too! HEY…I might be wrong? But my feeling (and thats all I have) is that RB are spending their budget on one car. Max is a great successor to Lewis so I fully understand why RB might do this. This is a great season for us all to watch. Will Max keep his composure to the end of the season? I’m excited to find out… just hope he fails 😉

      2. @ivan-vinitskyy Every time they told Verstappen to go faster he could go a lot faster still. He was just keeping a gap.

        1. @f1osaurus Its possible but didn’t feel like he was managing.. Margins were a bit too tight, 1 sec slower pit stop than mercs in first stint and they would have been behind. Second pit Mercedes got wrong with timing but it had the potential to be even closer.

          1. @ivan-vinitskyy Well every time Verstappen was told to pull a gap he easily pulled back out a 4s gap.

      3. @ivan-vinitskyy it is a given that a 23 year old is faster than a 37 year old.

        1. There are a lot of drivers in their 20s on the grid who would despair at this news.

          1. @dmw lol ok let me be more precise. If 2 drivers have similar talent, the 23 year old will be faster.

        2. This is also what I’ve been saying, if we assume, which is not unreasonable age-wise, that verstappen is just a bit faster than hamilton, then merc becomes the fastest car (since cars are pretty much even assuming the drivers have equal speed).

  8. A solid return to the Netherlands after all these years.

    We had some strategic games between the leaders but the best battles happened at the midfield. We had some interesting battles, with Perez playing a bigger role in that.

    I actually felt sorry for Bottas and the way Mercedes treated him at the end. I understand him playing a role in the first stint, but at the end it got ugly…

    Vettel spun again in a race, it’s the second time he does this in 4 races….

    1. How was he treated? He didn’t help the team… by being slow, he then went for fastest lap when clearly he wasnt’ fastest making the team risk with another pit stop for Ham. He’s being given roles because he’s not capable of racing for the win so team tries to find useful roles he could perform but he still fails at them.

      1. That lap 17 well if you cannot go faster you won’t be featuring in the fight at the front on your own strength call was a clear note to everyone that he’d have to then play the team game; the call to bring him in seemed odd and not very productive and fair enough that he wasn’t happy, but really, he was otherwise just cruising about a pitstop behind his betters with no threat from behind, so it sort of also felt like it was to be expected. Maybe Toto will tell him it’s though love encouragement for the last 8 or so races to do better?

        1. Although it should be said that unlike Perez (who yes, gained on Norris a bit), Bottas is why Mercedes still lead the Team championship over Red Bull I suppose, so well done-ish.

          1. Yeah, Bottas has been unspectacular in 2021 overall, but he is taking the results with great consistency.

      2. I mean he had a specific role to do today and managed it really well(the Ver-Ham gap went from 3.5 to less than a second) but the fact that for another time they left him out on extremely worn tyres and the way they handled his 2nd stop wasn’t good. He isn’t in the title battle and i understand that he’ll have to help as much as he can but i really didn’t like the FL situation

    2. Vettel spun again in a race, it’s the second time he does this in 4 races….

      3 races.
      Quite impressive how Bottas missed him. If only we still had the heart rate displayed.

  9. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    5th September 2021, 15:47

    Namecalling, how very mature.

    1. Don’t feed trolls.

      1. He’s become so stupid now.

  10. It does breed nationalism but then that’s just how the world functions today unfortunately.

  11. Fantastic result for Kubica considering the situation. Disappointed for Hamilton but I’m very happy for Robert.

  12. Yeh… completely unnecessary! Tge Dutch fans really surprised me today and I’m feeling alot of respect for them for drowning out the few boos that tried to emerge. Max drove superbly, the dutch fans created a very unique (for F1) atmosphere. I, of course, wanted Lewis to win but I feeling really happy with how today went. Kudos to the dutch and max fans! So wind your neck in!!!

    1. Yeah @deanr, from everything I could see and hear (including the commentary) today was a party atmosphere and there were cheers but not much booing; Verstappen won in a clearly just a bit better package for his hom ecrowd, first Dutch GP in his lifetime (and first one since I was 4 or so and didn’t yet follow F1), and the race was tense with strategy so fair enough and well done I’d say.

      1. It was party because Verstappen won. Everything would have been 180degrees if Ham did… fans aren’t changing… they just weren’t given the opportunity to demonstrate how they really feel towards Ham.

        1. Well that’s quite true I agree @ivan-vinitskyy, but even so, booing the guy that just didn’t win is poorer to me than the one that beat your favourite at his home track, so glad it didn’t happen regardless.

        2. @ivan-vinitskyy You gotta love when people use “should of, could of, would of” as an argument. O – M – G.

  13. It’s been 9 races, and Lewis won only 1 of them. The one where he spun Verstappen into the wall. To me, this is it – Verstappen is the new champion.

    Lewis always had this problem – if there are real contenders, he fails to deliver. He failed in 2007, he almost failed in 2008 (but got very lucky), he failed in 2010. In 2016. He can’t handle pressure against a real opponent (not a fake opponent like Vettel who won all of his WDCs thanks to Newey, or Rosberg in 2014-15).

    Verstappen is fast, doesn’t care about anyone, and he will become the F1 2021 WDC.

    1. I would be worried if I was Red Bull and our direct competitor is only three points behind despite not winning much in the last nine races. What will happen if Lewis does unlock some pace and wins one or even two more?

    2. Low quality comment in the midst of a number of high quality ones…

      1. Low quality cause it’s against hamilton? Got it.

        I think that while hamilton performed in 2007 and deserved the title, to be almost beaten by a more unlucky massa in a similar car in 2008 (massa is a bottas-type driver) doesn’t reflect well on hamilton, then all following seasons he was outperformed by alonso in a weaker car.

        I think he did well to get so close in a very unlucky 2016.

        In any case ian is right, there’s a huge win disparity but because of various issues verstappen lost so many points, a win with the opponent 2nd gains too few points to recover unlucky DNFs.

        1. I basically agree with you but massa was a tier above bottas pre injury

    3. Sviat, Vestappen has been in F1 since 2015 why havent he delivered?

      1. To be fair to max this is his only year with a championship winning car. Lewis has one every year save 09 and 13. Alonso meanwhile almost won the championship with a non championship winning car.

  14. The race looked great even though there wasn’t much excitement. Really impressive what Zandvoort circuit organized.

    Amazing how Hamilton was able to try and put some pressure on against that Red Bull. Verstappen didn’t make any mistakes either, but he had a lot more performance in hand to recover from small mistakes anyway.

    Insane how much Red Bull and Mercedes are ahead of the field here. Only the top 3 was not lapped and 2 of them actually had enough space behind for an extra stop. Ferrari was poor on this track and McLaren even more so. Yet Alpine (Alonso) and STR (Gasly) seemed to thrive. Odd how that works.

    Funny when Bottas took the fastest lap when told not to, but also so awkward that Hamilton then smokes him by going a full second faster still.

    Also hilarious when Ocon claimed that Alonso was holding him up. Sounded familiar to when Perez would say that about Stroll (or Ocon) ahead and then some reply would come back on the radio that the car ahead was saving fuel or tyres or whatever and that Perez should be doing the same. By the end of the race he would drop back several places. Same with Ocon here. Alonso P6, Ocon P9.

    Talking about Perez, utter embarrassment that Perez was voted driver of the day.

    Good to see that Vettel spinning is pretty much a staple still. That way (plus poor qualifying) is how he keeps his position in most overtakes of the season alive. So at least he has something to “fight” for.

    1. AJ (@asleepatthewheel)
      5th September 2021, 16:31

      That way (plus poor qualifying) is how he keeps his position in most overtakes of the season alive.

      Made me chuckle.

    2. Gaining most positions from start doesn’t deserve DOTD?

      1. that’s what the voters ejoy the most…
        DOTD Hungary and The Netherlands is the one with the most overtakes through the race.
        But for both drivers I think it is not that much of an achievement, quite easy in a much faster car

      2. Not unless it’s a driver outperforming his car. Usually these dotd votes go to drivers in a fast car who botch quali than gain ten positions against slower cars in the race. I found gasly, Alonso, max, and even lewis and leclerc to be more impressive this time out

    3. Perez is trying to top vettel with qualis like this!

  15. Hey Mr propre, can you please tell us your achievements ? I’m all ears :)

  16. Boring race qualifying decided the points like last week.

  17. The race was ok i think. I did not fall asleep. surprisingly, there were also some overtakes there. Happy Max kept the win, at least no one is running away in the title fight. Yet.

    Disappointed of Vettel’s performance today. i don’t know, but he did not look sharp enough today in the battles even though pretty sure he made the most passes again today.

    What do you guys think of Stroll’s move on Vettel in the last lap? Ok or a step too far?

    Also, and this is a specific Aston Martin related question:
    Do you think Szafnauer is being honest every time he very much praises Stroll’s performance? Or does he have it written in his contract that he must do that?
    I remember before the race, i think on saturday, he did an interview on F1.TV and there was a question about Stroll’s performance where the moderator suggested he is not having a great season. Szafnauer was very pleased about his performance, even mentioned he has been unlucky with some 1st lap DNFs – i don’t know, but the one in Hungary, that was not unlucky, that was overly optimistic.

    If you can share your thoughts, please.

    1. I don’t have a precise answer to your question, but my assessment is vettel had higher highs and higher lows than stroll, which if you go back to 2019 isn’t so unusual, stroll has been more consistent, he’s a decent midfield driver I think but I doubt he can make the step to be better than bottas in a top team.

  18. Great event, great atmosphere and with the only winner the audience came for…

    …so I’m afraid it can only go downhill from here! ☺️ If it rains next year and no-one wants to take the bike to the track, small miracle that we didn’t have any SC or red flags during the race…

    …but for now: celebrate a very enjoyable week, hope it doesn’t turn out to be a super spreader event, the (amount of) booing didn’t deserve the headlines it got, but I’m pretty confident that, besides Max’s victory, the happy responses from the drivers will be the legacy of this first Dutch GP in 36 years.

  19. You know what? Okay, get in the coffin now.

  20. Bottas taking that FLAP. Oh man. I guess they can’t do any else to him now and he probably eats alone in the canteen anyway lol. I think also that people thinking well bench him for Russell now, Mercedes can’t do that. They have a wcc they may yet win even with verstappen so strong.

    I know people love them some George Russell but he’s just nothing special on Sundays. Which is now more glaring that the Williams is it the worst car. He’s quick over a lap. But so is Bottas. Mercedes need to keep Bottas happy enough in that other car.

    1. Russell demolished bottas when they met in the race performance wise, I don’t agree he’s nothing special on sunday, let’s see him on a good car.

  21. So in the last 9 races, max won 6 on a trot with Lewis’ only 1 fortuitous win and still somehow only 3 points behind..Max has been snookered with no margin for error in remaining races as Lewis is fully warmed up for the title charge, and yet all is well with the oranje brigade

    1. It will be easier from now on for Lewis. Doubt whether Max can win the WDC. Lewis has had too much luck and vice versa. I do not see this fall Max way given the pace Mercedes has had all year. Looking at Bottas vs Perez has got me even more convinced in the end nothing turns out to be changed vs the last 7 years.

      1. I always expect the luck to even out over the year. We’ll see. Max has every chance in this fight. I feel as though there are more tracks on the calendar that favour Red Bull than Mercedes but only just. both max and Lewis are amazing. Max looks to be riding the feet of a wave at the moment. I am surprised that people don’t have faith in him, but I suppose it’s always easier to see the negatives, especially seeing as this is his first real big chance

        1. It’s not lack of faith in verstappen, it’s the point-system: to recover the points you lose in baku (ignoring the fact this prompted hamilton’s mistake) you need 4 wins if your opponent gets 2nd with fastest lap, in fact you need 1 more point than that.

          If luck evens out even just a little I’m sure verstappen can win (example a mechanical DNF for hamilton, that would roughly halve the luck gap between them), but if it doesn’t or if it keeps going the way the first half went, it’s respectively hard or impossible.

        2. Nothing ever goes wrong for Hamilton, and when it does there’s a magical red flag or he’s 500 points clear of second place. He’ll win

    2. @kiarie yeah, it’s impressive that Lewis is able to stick around in the championship given Max’s record of victories. Perez and Bottas have nearly half the points that Verstappen has and we’re only in the half season. It’s going to take every ounce of Lewis’s skill to win this championship.

      1. It’s not about skill, it’s about luck, look at 2016 and tell me hamilton didn’t outperform rosberg, he did everything possible but it wasn’t enough due to the crazy luck difference.

  22. Race seemed a bit like the inaugural Azerbaijan GP; lots of pre-race talk of a crazy circuit, only for the race to be fairly subdued. Drivers were on their best behaviour, and other than the first lap bumps by the Alpines the only real incidents were Vettel’s misjudged inside line into Hugenholtz and Norris trying to run Pérez wide and nudging into him instead.

    Today’s race saw another mediocre performance by the second drivers at the top teams. Bottas attempt at holding up Verstappen was barely a blip on the Dutchman’s afternoon, and Pérez was praised for overtaking a bunch of slow cars that he should never have been racing in the first place. So despite the win, Red Bull once again leaves a track with fewer points than Mercedes.

    And speaking of slow cars, it was another Grand Prix where one wonders how the people at McLaren, Ferrari and Alpine keep getting it wrong with their F1 projects. These are proper manufacturersteams, but they were badly outclassed – and even lapped – once again.

    1. Yes, I find it silly that in the race ratings perez gets higher than bottas, they should make weekend-ratings and in that case there’s no way in hell perez deserves higher, if you start 3rd and end 3rd it’s better than failing qualifying and recovering even to 4th.

  23. Awesome race, even a procession can be good on a great track.

    Wonderful really.

  24. VER should be disappearing into the distance but for the his own rotten luck coinciding with HAM’s incredibly good luck. While VER has haemorrhaged points though no fault of his own, HAM has scored some huge points he didn’t deserve. On actual driving merit, the VER+RB16B combo has been head and shoulders above HAM+W12. Here’s hoping the remainder of the race outcomes aren’t as heavily luck-driven!

    1. Absolutely, this is my point too, and then you have people saying if verstappen wins by 5 points it’s a travesty because of spa, ridiculous.

    2. In the specific I would say it’s more verstappen losing points through bad luck than hamilton gaining them through luck, exception (where he gained a lot) would be imola.

    3. @andrewwj Silverstone wasn’t luck. It was outright cheating. Bumped off on purpose.

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