Max Verstappen has won his home Grand Prix at Zandvoort this afternoon after a thrilling day on track filled with overtakes, delayed pit stops, and safety cars.
In the final laps, Verstappen managed to pull his Red Bull four seconds clear of George Russell in second, while Charles Leclerc was almost five seconds further back in third.
Hamilton looked to be in contention for a podium finish this afternoon, but after what he described as a “f*** up” by the team with his strategy, he ended up in fourth after losing second to his teammate George Russell, and Charles Leclerc for third.
Today’s result means Red Bull continues to lead the Championship Standings across the board and is in a great position heading into the final race of this triple header in Monza next weekend.
Speaking after the race, today’s winner said: “It was not a straightforward race but we had to push, of course with safety car, virtual safety car, making the right calls,” he said.
“Always a bit of question mark but it worked out really well. Once we got back to the soft tyres we had great pace again.
On his restart overtake on Lewis Hamilton, he added: “We timed it really well out of that last corner into the banking. You could see the draft was quite strong and we got ahead. It’s incredible to win again.
“It’s always special to win your home GP. This year I had to work for it even more. An incredible weekend and I’m really happy we got the Dutch GP.”
George Russell, then spoke of his P2 finish and his overtake on teammate Lewis Hamilton and said: “We like to keep it close, you know, always,” Russell says.
“As a team today, we showed incredible pace, I know the team result wasn’t quite what we hoped for but this gives us a lot of confidence and a lot of faith moving forward.”
Leclerc then added: “To be honest, much better was difficult to do.
“We were a little unlucky with the VSC. I don’t know if this would have changed anything – max was too quick today.
“Then there was the Mercedes which were flying on the hard tyres. We struggled to find the feeling on the hard tyres, so we’ll analyse that.”
