Oscar Piastri’s dominance at Zandvoort, Ferrari disaster
McLaren’s Australian Oscar Piastri triumphs in the Dutch Grand Prix at the Zandvoort circuit ahead of Red Bull world champion and home favorite Max Verstappen. Third was Racing Bulls’ French-Algerian Isack Hadjar, making his first career podium. Ferrari’s Caporetto: both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc retired, though the latter through no fault of his own.
Usual super start by Verstappen, as opposed to Norris who, as usual, gets off to a bad start and cedes second position to the Dutchman who also risks going off the track at the Gerlach corner but is miraculously saved.
In the lead is poleman Piastri, a little further back Leclerc overtakes Russell and is fifth behind Hadjar, Hamilton remains seventh. On the ninth lap Norris on the outside of the first corner, the legendary Tarzan, overtakes Verstappen, who is clearly surprised because he makes no attempt to resist, as he usually does.
At the end of lap 22 the first to stop among the big guys for tire changes is Leclerc, soon after Hamilton crashes at the fourth corner, the Hugenholtz, and the safety-car enters the track so everyone takes the opportunity to pit, with a light drizzle falling. In this way, when the safety car steps aside, Leclerc has lost fifth position to Russell but there is also a light drizzle that is falling but that stops almost immediately.
On lap 33, just after a quick virtual safety-car to clear a debris on the track, Leclerc stupendously overtakes Russell going almost completely off the track on the inside of a corner, the Briton attempts a counter-attack on the pit straight but the Ferrari’s Monegasque holds out. But being a Formula 1 maneuver from the golden age, then adding that Russell’s Mercedes is damaged so much that the Briton has to let Antonelli pass on team orders, the overtaking move is incredibly under investigation by the stewards and the verdict will come only at the end of the race.
But the verdict suddenly loses interest because when the Monegasque makes his second pit stop at the end of the fifty-second lap, at the Hugenholtz corner Antonelli who comes in hot and tries to overtake him but with his right front tire rams Leclerc’s left rear tire and he spins, crashes and has to retire, the Italian instead manages to continue but rightly gets 10 seconds penalty. Of course the safety car returns to the track and of course everyone takes the opportunity to make their second pit stop. What’s more, Kimi is given an additional 5-second penalty for speeding in the pits.
On lap sixty-five the twist: Norris stops along the track with his engine up in smoke: also an episode from old Formula 1 in an era of incredible reliability for all cars! Safety-car for the third time on the track but nothing changes, and Piastri triumphs for the ninth time in his career, the seventh in the season ahead of Verstappen and Hadjar, who at 21 years of age yet to be, fifth youngest ever, and at his 14th Grand Prix takes his first podium. In the world championship standings Piastri increases his lead to 34 points over Norris and 104 over Verstappen, Ferrari remains second in the constructors’ standings by only 12 points over Mercedes, which placed Russell in fourth.
Fifth was Thailand’s Alexander Albon in the Williams, sixth was Britain’s Oliver Bearman in the Haas, seventh and eighth were Canada’s Lance Stroll and 44-year-old Spaniard Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martins, ninth was Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda in the second Red Bull, and the points zone was closed by France’s Esteban Ocon, tenth in the second Haas. Piastri also made the Grand Slam: pole, victory by staying in the lead from the first to the last lap and fastest lap: the last person to achieve this with McLaren had been Mika Hakkinen in the 1998 Monaco GP. In a week, the European season comes to a close with the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
