Race Report: Norris wins Dutch GP

Lando Norris wins his second race in a row at the Dutch Grand Prix ahead of a brace of Mercedes cars. Lando looked on the back foot for the Sprint but McLaren turned things around on Sunday.

Win

A win for Lando and McLaren with great strategy for Lando to get him in front of Kimi Antonelli with a significant tire offset gambit. Lando is 83 points between Lando and Kimi in the championship. Last year taught us that that gap can be closed if McLaren continue to upgrade and win.

A win for George Russell who held on to P3 ahead of a brace of Ferrari’s having been told to move over for Kimi. George wasn’t happy about it and to be fair, Kimi wasn’t fighting for the win so pulling over for Antonelli was a difficult thing to do. Good run on 22-lap older tires.

A win for Nico Hulkenberg for a P8 and an equally big win for Fernando Alonso dragging his Aston Martin into P9.

Also a win for Pierre Gasly who finished ahead of both Racing Bulls showing their upgrades are working.

Fail

A tough race for Oscar Piastri who looked good early on but lost out with slow stops and a strategy that didn’t pay dividends.

A fail for Ferrari who couldn’t make it to the podium. A team order to Charles Leclerc that was ignored could have cost one car on the podium. Lewis and Charles drove good races but the team strategy could have been a little tighter.

A fail for Max Verstappen who crashed on lap one. Glad he is ok.

A fail for Racing Bulls who allowed an Alpine to finish ahead of them.

A fail for Haas F1 with a dual DNF. The team are drifting to a solid last place.

WTH

Not exactly sure how both Williams managed to hit each other but that wasn’t what the team needed.

A shame to see Zandvoort go. I like the track and the Dutch fans are terrific. 325,000 of them piled into the circuit despite the train system having issues.

Pirelli Report:

DARIO MARRAFUSCHI – PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR

“The last race at Zandvoort proved full of twists and turns and highly unpredictable, particularly from a strategic perspective, with all three available compounds coming into play. The picture painted by the previous sessions ultimately proved inaccurate for the teams, forcing them to revise their approach to the Grand Prix in light of new variables and pushing them towards either two or three-stop strategies

The weather played a significant role, with an unexpected rain shower before the start preventing the track from evolving as anticipated and altering the temperature profile, which was noticeably higher than during Saturday’s Sprint.

Tyre degradation, which had appeared relatively limited until the previous day, turned out to be significant, largely due to the increased wear caused by track conditions that had deteriorated and become particularly slippery following the rain.

After the stint following the restart, teams immediately realised that the conditions would not allow them to remain competitive with a one-stop strategy. Influenced by events on track as well, they therefore sought to identify the most effective tyre combinations for their drivers.

Following the first red flag, almost ten different strategies emerged, with notable variations even among the leading teams. For example, Lawson did not use the Hard compound, while McLaren opted not to fit the Medium again after the initial start. By contrast, other drivers, such as Leclerc, made use of all three available compounds.

As a result, we witnessed a highly engaging Grand Prix from a strategic standpoint, in which the teams were able to exploit the characteristics of each compound, all of which proved effective under specific conditions, identifying those best suited to maximising the strengths of their respective cars.

Particularly illustrative in this regard was the use of the Soft tyre by Antonelli and the two Ferrari drivers in the closing stages of the race, enabling them to make up ground on their direct rivals and, in the Italian’s case, even gain a position on his team-mate.”

Dutch GP Results: